The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money.
Bernard Meltzer inverts our usual calculus of value—he's not asking what you could rebuild with your skills and relationships, but rather *who you'd become* without your financial cushion. Most people assume this quote celebrates character over cash, yet the harder truth it contains is that money often masks our actual worth, letting us coast on purchasing power rather than genuine capability or kindness. A divorced executive who discovers his children barely know him, or a wealthy person abandoned by friends once his fortune vanishes, learns this lesson painfully and late. The measure Meltzer proposes is ruthless because it strips away every comfortable fiction we maintain about ourselves.