The sage — or, more broadly, the one who has understood where the genuine good lies — cannot be harmed from outside. Since the only real TERMevil is vice, and vice is one's own assent to a bad judgment, no external force can make a person vicious against his will. The external can wound the body, take away property, deprive one of the people one loves — but it cannot touch the TERMruling part unless the ruling part itself yields. The Stoic sage is therefore "unharmable" (ἀβλαβής) — not because he is shielded, but because harm is localised only where he is his own master.

SVF III 567–579 (on the invulnerability of the sage); classically: Plat. Apol. 30c–d, 41d ("the bad person cannot harm the better"); Sen. De const. sap. (a whole treatise on this thesis); Epict. Ench. 5; Disc. 1.18; 3.22.100. In Marcus: Med. 2.1; 2.11; 4.8; 4.49; 7.16; 7.22; 8.41; 8.55.

In 02-01 the doctrine is carried through by a direct step: "no one can drag me into the shameful (αἰσχρόν)" — and therefore no one can harm me. The hidden premise: harm = vice = the shameful; everything else is no harm at all. Linked to dichotomy-of-control: harm is possible only in the sphere of what is up to us, and what is up to us is only our own assent. Therapeutically the doctrine removes the ground of anger: if my neighbour is unable to harm me, then indignation against him too is a category error, not a legitimate reaction.