Another in our occasional series of quotes encountered recently which interested or amused us …

Northland College Principal John Tapene has offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth:
‘Always we hear the cry from teenagers “What can we do, where can we go?”
‘My answer is this: Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons, and after you’ve finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun.
‘The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in sickness and lonely again. In other words, grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important, you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you!’
[Source unknown]

To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.
[Jacques Derrida]

Faith is believing something you know ain’t true.
[Mark Twain]

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
[Henry Ford]

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
[Will Durant]

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
[Rick Cook]