So if someone doesn't desperately want to die or live at all costs — if they just accept whatever happens — what stops them from approaching the tyrant without fear? Nothing. What if someone feels the same way about their property as the dying man feels about his body? What if they feel this way about their children and wife too? What if they're so detached — maybe from wisdom or despair — that they don't care whether they keep these things or lose them? They're like children playing with shells. The kids might argue over the game, but they don't actually care about the shells themselves. This person values the joy and activity these things bring, not the things themselves. What tyrant could frighten someone like that? What guards or swords could threaten them?
If then any man neither wishing to die nor to live by all means, but only as it may be permitted, approaches the tyrant what hinders him from approaching the tyrant without fear? Nothing. If then a man has the same opinion about his property as the man whom I have instanced has about his body; and also about his children and his wife, and in a word is so affected by some madness or despair that he cares not whether he possesses them or not, but like children who are playing with shells (quarrel) about the play, but do not trouble themselves about the shells, so he too has set no value on the materials (things), but values the pleasure that he has with them and the occupation, what tyrant is then formidable to him, or what guards or what swords?