maturation

Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist--a master--and that is what Auguste Rodin was--can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is . . . and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be . . . and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body.

The art of diplomacy is finding a reasonable route among imperfect alternatives.

In being able to learn from his mistakes and grow, Eisenhower "was transformed from a mere person into a personage.

He was experienced enough to spot the downside of doing the right thing.

Rehnquist was just reflecting his shifting role, from outsider to the institutional embodiment of the Court.

Bring it down." Veteran leader Han Solo's correction to the overbearing swagger bike which his protégé is attempting to force his will on others.

The author defines professionalism as exemplified by his subjects in their mutual unwillingness to take expected opposition personally. They would not allow grudges to get in the way of more important business.

Moral action _ humble and honest _ is the tribute that power must at some point pay to reason.

He is able to put aside personal feelings and see the broad strokes. Experience counts in these things.

His level of experience is nearly transcendent.

Eleanor Roosevelt on the changes in John F. Kennedy that led her to drop her opposition to his nomination for president: "He has the qualities of a scholar, and a sense of history. I had the feeling that he was the man who can learn. I like him better than I ever had before because he seemed so little caulk-sure, and I think he has a mind that is open to new ideas.

JFK apparently felt genuine sympathy for his 1960 presidential opponent Richard Nixon. He felt that, with Nixon's frequent shifts in political philosophy and reinventions, he must have to decide which Nixon he will be at each stop. This, Kennedy reasoned, must be exhausting.

I think I should be allowed to be only fair, or even mediocre, for a while.

Exiting from any long-term relationship comes at great personal expense, which explains why so many people are understandably reluctant to endure the cost of severance. Beginnings and endings are always dramatic and occasionally traumatic. Youthful brio allows us to engage in transformation. As we age, we carefully weigh the spectacle of continuing enduring harrowing situations or seeking melodramatic renovation of our core being. Analysis of the respective cost benefit ratio, consideration of the known versus the unknown, can delay or permanently deter us from altering our environment, leading our persona to become more rigid as we mature. Transformations in life are disconcerting to people who resist change.

Nothing that remains static is truly ever alive. Nature does not abide idleness. All energy sources of the natural world and the cosmos are in a constant motion, they are in a perpetual state of fluctuation. All forms of living must make allowances for the seasons of change. The Earth itself is twirling through space, spinning on its axis analogous to a child__ top. The unpredictable forces of instability brought about by a combination of motion, change, and flux propels the miraculous dynamism of existence.

Women did what strawberry plants did before they shot out their thin vines: the quality of the green changed. Then the vine threads came, then the buds. By the time the white petals died and the mint-colored berry poked out, the leaf shine was gilded tight and waxy.

Vulnerability creates unimaginable space to build each other up, as much as it creates ample room to tear each other down.

(He) committed the cardinal sin in a college atmosphere not only of being different but of being different in a way that left a lot of people with the impression that he thought he was better than they were.