When [a politician] is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it."

It is obvious that a politician often passes the first half of his life in explaining that he can do something, and the second half of it in explaining that he cannot. When he is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it. In short, when he is impotent he proves to us that the thing is easy; and when he is omnipotent he proves that it is impossible.

-March 30, 1918, Illustrated London News