Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Quote

The perils of change are so great the promise of the most hopeful theories is so often deceptive, that it is frequently the wiser part to uphold the existing state of things, if it can be done, even though, in point of argument, it should be utterly indefensible... Resistance is folly or heroism—a virtue or a vice—in most cases, according to the probabilities there are of its being successful.

Quarterly Review, 117, 1865, p. 550.