… is from page 14 of George Stigler‘s entertaining 1988 autobiography, Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist:
A large number of successful businessmen have gone on to high administrative posts in the national government, and many – I think most – have been less than distinguished successes in that new environment. They are surrounded and overpowered by informed and entrenched subordinates, they must deal with legislators who can be relentless in their demands, and almost everything in their agency that should be changed is untouchable.
