Once things have happened once

Charles Frankel, in High on Foggy Bottom; an Outsider's Inside View of the Government

Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason. For every argument inside government that some jerry-built bureaucratic arrangement should be changed, there are usually twenty arguments to show that it rest's on God's own Logic, an that tampering with it will bring down the heavens.

Likely to be a valid statement also for individuals