Legislating Morality

If God preserves them in His laws, they will find out easily enough what legislation is in general necessary. Otherwise, they will spend their whole time making and correcting detailed regulations, always expecting thereby to achieve perfection. That is, they will lead lives like invalids who lack the restraint to give up a vicious way of life, but expect the doctor to cure them with no effort on their part.

The State whose prospective rulers come to their duties with the least enthusiasm is bound to have the best and most tranquil government, and the state whose rulers are eager to rule, the worst. Men whose life is impoverished and destitute of personal satisfaction hope to snatch some compensation for their own inadequacy from a political career. They start fighting for power, and the consequent internal and domestic conflicts ruin both them and society.

—Plato, The Republic.