Most well-trodden paths lead nowhere. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles. Anything that begins well, ends badly. Anything that begins badly, ends worse.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment. A committee is the only life form with 12 stomachs and no brain. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. A dandelion from a true love means more than a red rose from a friend.