No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Character outlasts everything else

This line from Plato sounds almost naively optimistic until you realize what he actually means. He's not saying good people never experience bad things—they do, constantly. A person with genuine integrity still gets sick, loses money, faces betrayal. What Plato is saying is stranger and more useful: nothing external can actually harm what matters most about you.

Think about it this way. When something bad happens, the real damage isn't always the event itself—it's how we respond. A good person facing injustice doesn't become corrupted by it. Someone who loses everything but keeps their principles hasn't actually lost what's essential. The worry most of us carry is that hardship will make us worse, or that we'll be forced to compromise who we are. Plato's suggesting that's not how it works. Your character is tougher than circumstances.

This matters today because we're taught to fear almost everything—financial ruin, illness, failure, what others think. Those things sting, sure. But Plato points at something we often forget: we have more control over our inner life than we think. The person who stays honest through difficulty, who doesn't become bitter or cruel when wronged—they've protected something no loss can take. That's less about being lucky and more about what you decide to guard most fiercely.