Think of your Bitcoin transactions as individual passwords. These passwords are best stored in a password manager. A wallet is nothing else than a password manager.
The node is like an accounting system. You can either trust someone else's opinion on the accuracy of these accounts, or verify these accounts yourself.
(I wish there was an edit button - but it's good enough)
On second thought, I would have said:
I think of Bitcoin transactions as individual passwords. These passwords are best stored in a password manager.
A wallet is nothing else than a password manager.
The node is like a copy of a financial statement.
You can either trust someone else's opinion on the accuracy of this financial statement, or verify it yourself.
