What is the full quote of “Money is the root of all evil”?
Usually quotedMoney is the root of all evil.
ActuallyFor the love of money is the root of all evil.
1 Timothy 6:10 · 1 Timothy 6:10 (King James Version)
Three missing words, and the meaning inverts — the verse condemns the appetite, not the thing.
Without *the love of*, the sentence indicts money itself. With it, the sentence indicts wanting money too much. That is the difference between a claim almost nobody could defend and a piece of moral psychology that survives contact with the world.
Many modern translations sharpen it further, giving a root of all kinds of evil rather than the root of all evil — narrower again, and harder to weaponise.
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For your English: Small function words carry enormous weight in English. Of, the, and a are not filler — here they are the entire argument.