For there is such a difference between the way men live and the way
they ought to live, that anybody who abandons what is for what ought
to be will learn something that will ruin rather than preserve him,
because anyone who determines to act in all circumstances the part of
a good man must come to ruin among so many who are not good.
-- Machiavelli, Il principe
We should realize that a city is better off with bad law o long as they
remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that
the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than
the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule,
states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals....