These obstacles cannot wound you or hurt you at all. If they could, then anyone who faced them would become worse than before. This is true for everything else — what harms something makes it worse. But with humans, it's the opposite. If you handle these obstacles well, they make you better and more worthy of praise. Remember this general rule: nothing can hurt a good citizen unless it hurts the city itself. Nothing can hurt the city unless it hurts the law itself. But none of these accidents or outside obstacles actually harm the law. They don't go against justice and fairness, which keep society together. So they can't hurt the city or its citizens either.
and of themselves can neither wound, nor do any hurt at all. Else must he of necessity, whosoever he be that meets with any of them, become worse than he was before. For so is it in all other subjects, that that is thought hurtful unto them, whereby they are made worse. But here contrariwise, man (if he make that good use of them that he should) is rather the better and the more praiseworthy for any of those kind of hindrances, than otherwise. But generally remember that nothing can hurt a natural citizen, that is not hurtful unto the city itself, nor anything hurt the city, that is not hurtful unto the law itself. But none of these casualties, or external hindrances, do hurt the law itself; or, are contrary to that course of justice and equity, by which public societies are maintained: neither therefore do they hurt either city or citizen.