But someone who is still working toward virtue faces a different situation. Even if they have made great progress, they still need some help from fortune. They are still wrestling with ordinary human problems. They are still trying to untie the knot that binds them to mortal concerns. What's the difference between people at this stage and those who have reached perfect virtue? Some are tied more tightly by these bonds than others. Some have even made their chains heavier by choice. But the person who has made real progress toward wisdom and lifted themselves up carries a looser chain. They are not yet free, but they are almost free.
He, however, who is only on the road to virtue, although he may have made great progress along it, nevertheless needs some favour from fortune while he is still struggling among mere human interests, while he is untying that knot, and all the bonds which bind him to mortality. What, then, is the difference between them? it is that some are tied more or less tightly by these bonds, and some have even tied themselves with them as well; whereas he who has made progress towards the upper regions and raised himself upwards drags a looser chain, and though not yet free, is yet as good as free.