Yale University Quotes

“Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“When I interviewed at Yale, the admissions committee asked me why they should let me into the program. I looked at them unblinking and said, 'Because I'm going to change the world some day. And I'm giving you the chance to say, We knew her when.”
― Sarah Thebarge

“Say a white boy takes a wrong turn and comes to my hood," he once said. "Now he's in the minority––nobody wants him there, unless it's to rob his ass––and more than anything he has to think about how to protect himself, how to get out. There's no weaker situation to be in than that, and this boy isn't getting anything productive done until he's out, back among his own people. But we take a wrong turn and end up at Yale, for the first time in our lives we don't have to worry about protecting ourselves. And we were all able to get enough shit done to be accepted here––so imagine what we can do when you take all the crazy hood shit out of the equation and we can just focus on the business at hand. So what if it's annoying as hell? Instead of sitting around here bitching about it, maybe we just accept that it is what it is, and know that we have the capacity to get way more from them than they'll ever get from us.”
― Jeff Hobbs, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League

“But Anja. I hear Anja's voice. Maybe I am insane. I hear her crying. I see her alone in the trees. I remember being alone and humiliated. I remember, too, the fat little boy hiding in the bathroom. And I see this man, Ariane. I see this evil man, Ariane. He laughs everyday still. He has had years of laughter. He has triumphed over the screams of others, he has triumphed with blood on his hands. And he laughs still. God has cursed us! He has either cursed us or He was never here to begin with. We've pretended God was here for our own sanity! That's the truth! We've pretended evil is punished and good is rewarded. A perfect scheme!”
― Sergio Troncoso, The Nature of Truth

“A group of ten prisoners from Dachau, I was with them, we hid in the forest to wait for the Americans. The Germans had already left everything behind. We had food but no weapons. For days we could hear bombs exploding around us. We just wanted to survive long enough for the Americans to control the territory. We didn’t want to die. At that point, our prison uniforms were the only things to keep us from being shot on the spot by the Americans. That was all we had. Who would the Americans believe? Real prisoners or guards dressed as prisoners? Those devils might even say we were the Germans. This was our nightmare.”
― Sergio Troncoso, The Nature of Truth

“Kuna mambo yanatokea hapa ulimwenguni ambayo yanafanya nikiri uwepo wa Mungu kwa asilimia kubwa. Wanasayansi wanasema ulimwengu ulianzishwa na mlipuko wa ‘Big Bang’, uliotokea takribani miaka bilioni 14 iliyopita, kutoka katika kitu kidogo zaidi kuliko ncha ya sindano, lakini hawatuambii nini kilisababisha mlipuko huo utokee au hicho kitu kidogo kuliko ncha ya sindano kilitoka au kilikuwa wapi.

Wanaendelea kusema kuwa baada ya ‘Big Bang’ kutakuwepo na ‘Big Crunch’, ambapo ulimwengu utarudia hali yake ya awali ya udogo kuliko ncha ya sindano, na kila kitu kinachoonekana leo ulimwenguni hakitaonekana tena.

Hapo sasa ndipo utata unapokuja. Mlipuko wa ‘Big Bang’ ulipotokea ulimwengu ulilipuka na kusambaa pande zote nne za ulimwengu kwa mwendokasi wa zaidi ya kilometa milioni 2 kwa saa, mpaka hivi leo unavyoonekana na bado unaendelea kusambaa. Kutokana na dhana ya ‘Big Crunch’, wanasayansi wanaamini ulimwengu utapanuka ila baadaye utapungua mwendo na utarudi mwanzo kabisa mahali ulipolipukia.

Lakini mwaka 1995 wanasayansi hao hao waligundua kitu. Ulimwengu – badala ya kupungua mwendo wa kupanuka kama wanasayansi walivyokuwa wakitabiri – sasa unaongeza mwendo, tena kwa mwendokasi ambao haujawahi kutokea.

Hiki ni nini kinachosababisha ulimwengu uongeze mwendokasi kiasi hicho badala ya kuupunguza? Hicho ni nini ambacho ulimwengu unapanukia? Wanasayansi hawana jibu. Wanasingizia kitu kinaitwa ‘dark matter’, maada ambayo haijawahi kuonekana, kwamba ndicho kinachosababisha ulimwengu uongeze mwendokasi kwa kiwango hicho ambacho hakijawahi kutokea; na hicho ambacho ulimwengu unapanukia wanahisi ulimwengu wetu unapanukia katika ulimwengu mwingine, kwa mujibu wa dhana nyingine kabisa iitwayo ‘multiverse’ au ‘meta-universe’.

Kuna kitu kinaitwa ‘Higgs boson’ – chembe ndogo inayosemekana kuhusika na uzito (‘mass’) wa chembe ndogo 16 zilizomo ndani ya atomu, kasoro chembe ya mwanga, iliyopotea mara tu baada ya mlipuko wa ulimwengu wa ‘Big Bang’ miaka bilioni 13.7 iliyopita katika kipindi kilichoitwa ‘epoch’ – ambayo ilianza kutafutwa katika maabara za CERN, Uswisi, toka mwaka 1964, maabara ambazo kazi yake kubwa ni kutengeneza mazingira ya mwanzo kabisa ya mlipuko wa ‘Big Bang’, kusudi wanasayansi waone kama wanaweza kubahatisha kuiona na kuidhibiti hiyo bosoni.

Bosoni itakapopatikana wanasayansi watajua siri ya ‘dark matter’, watajua jinsi ulimwengu unavyofanya kazi na jinsi ulivyoumbwa na jibu la kitendawili cha ‘Standard Model’ litapatikana.

Hiyo ni kazi ngumu. Ndiyo maana ‘Higgs boson’ mwaka 1993 iliitwa ‘The God Particle’. Yaani, wanasayansi wanahisi kuna muujiza wa Kimungu na huenda wasiipate kabisa hiyo bosoni. Wanasema waliipata mwaka 2013. Lakini hiyo waliyoipata bado ina utata.

Kutokana na kushindwa huko kwa sayansi na historia, kutokana na kushindwa kwa sayansi kutengeneza binadamu au mnyama, kutokana na miujiza iliyorekodiwa katika vitabu vitakatifu; naamini, Mungu yupo.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Wanasayansi wana uwezo wa kupeleleza hadi kipindi cha karne ya kwanza ambapo Yesu aliishi, alikufa, alifufuka na alipaa kwenda mbinguni, na wana uwezo wa kujua mambo mengi kwa hakika yaliyofanyika katika kipindi hicho na hata katika kipindi cha kabla ya hapo.

Kuna miujiza ambayo Yesu aliifanya ambayo haiko ndani ya Biblia. Kwa mfano, Biblia inasema Yesu alizaliwa ndani ya zizi la ng’ombe wakati sayansi inasema alizaliwa nje ya zizi la ng’ombe; na muujiza wa kwanza kuufanya ambao hauko ndani ya Biblia ni kutembea mara tu baada ya kuzaliwa, na watu na ndege wa angani kuganda kabla ya kuzaliwa Masihi na kabla ya wakunga kufika kumsaidia Maria Magdalena kujifungua.

Akiwa na umri wa miaka sita, sayansi inasema, Yesu alikuwa akicheza na mtoto mwenzake juu ya paa la nyumba ya jirani na mara Yesu akamsukuma mwenzake kutoka juu hadi chini na mwenzake huyo akafariki papo hapo. Watu walipomsonga sana Yesu kwa kumtuhumu kuwa yeye ndiye aliyesababisha kifo cha mwenzake, na kwamba wangemfungulia mashtaka, Yesu alikataa katakata kuhusika na kifo hicho.

Lakini walipozidi kumsonga, aliusogelea mwili wa rafiki yake kisha akamwita na kumwambia asimame. Yule mtoto alisimama! Huo ukawa muujiza mkubwa wa kwanza wa Yesu Kristo, kufufua mtu nje ya maandiko matakatifu.

Kuna mifano mingi inayodhihirisha uwepo wa Mungu ambayo wanasayansi hawawezi hata kuipatia majibu. Tukio la Yoshua kusimamisha jua limewashangaza wanasayansi hadi nyakati za leo. Mwanzoni mwa miaka ya 70 wanasayansi walijaribu kurudisha muda nyuma kwa kompyuta kuona kama kweli wangekuta takribani siku moja imepotea kama ilivyorekodiwa katika Biblia.

Cha kushangaza, cha kushangaza mno, walikuta saa 23 na dakika 20 zimepotea katika mazingira ambayo hawakuweza na hawataweza kuyaelewa. Walipochunguza vizuri walikuta ni kipindi cha miaka ya 1500 KK (Jumanne tarehe 22 Julai) ambacho ndicho tukio la Yoshua la kusimamisha jua na kusogeza mwezi nyuma digrii 10, ambazo ni sawa na mzunguko wa dakika 40, lilipotokea.

Kwa kutumia elimu ya wendo, elimu ya kupanga miaka na matukio ya Kibiblia, dunia iliumbwa Jumapili tarehe 22 Septemba mwaka 4000 KK. Hata hivyo, mahesabu ya kalenda yanaonyesha kuwa Septemba 22 ilikuwa Jumatatu (si Jumapili) na kwamba kosa hilo labda lilisababishwa na siku ya Yoshua iliyopotea.

Hayo yote ni kwa mujibu wa Profesa C. A. Totten, wa Chuo Kikuu cha Yale, katika kitabu chake cha ‘Joshua’s Long Day and the Dial of Ahaz: A Scientific Vindication and a Midnight Cry’ kilichochapishwa mwaka 1890.

Kama hakuna Mungu iliwezekanaje Yoshua aombe jua lisimame na jua likasimama kweli? Iliwezekanaje Yesu aseme atakufa, atafufuka na atapaa kwenda mbinguni na kweli ikatokea kama alivyosema? Ndani ya Biblia kuna tabiri 333 zilizotabiri maisha yote ya Yesu Kristo hapa duniani na zote zilitimia – bila kupungua hata moja. Utasemaje hapo hakuna Mungu? Mungu yupo, naamini, sijui.

Tukio la Yesu kufa, kufufuka na kupaa kwenda mbinguni si la vitabu vitakatifu pekee, hata sayansi inakubaliana na hilo.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Mother once said I’d marry a quarryman. She looked at me as we washed clothes in the giant steel washtub, two pairs of water-wrinkled hands scrubbing and soaking other people’s laundry. We were elbow-deep in dirty suds and our fingers brushed under the foamy mounds.
“Some mistakes are bound to be repeated,” she murmured
We lived in Stony Creek, a granite town at a time when granite was going out of fashion. There were only three types of men here: Cottagers, rich, paunchy vacationers who swooped into our little Connecticut town in May and wiled away time on their sailboats through August; townsmen, small-time merchants and business owners who dreamed of becoming Cottagers; and quarrymen, men like my father, who worked with no thought to the future.
The quarrymen toiled twelve hours a day, six days a week. They didn’t care that they smelled of granite dust and horses, grease and putty powder. They didn’t care about cleaning the crescents of grime from underneath their fingernails. Even when they heard the foreman’s emergency signal, three sharp shrieks of steam, they scarcely looked up from their work. In the face of a black powder explosion gone awry or the crushing finality of a wrongly cleaved stone, they remained undaunted.
I knew why they lived this way. They did it for the granite. Nowhere else on earth did such stone exist—mesmerizing collages of white quartz, pink and gray feldspar, black lodestone, winking glints of mica. Stony Creek granite was so striking, it graced the most majestic of architecture: the Battle Monument at West Point, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the Fulton Building in Pittsburgh, the foundations of the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. The quarrymen of Stony Creek would wither and fall before the Cottagers, before the townsmen. But the fruits of their labor tethered them to a history that would stand forever.
“You’ll marry one, Adele—I’m sure of it. His hands will be tough as buckskin, but you’ll love him regardless,” Mother told me, her breath warm in my ear as the steam of the wastewater rose around us.
I didn’t say that she was wrong, that she couldn’t know what would happen. I’d learned that from the quarry. Pa was a stonecutter and he cut the granite according to rift and grain, to what he could feel with his fingertips and see with his eyes. But there were cracks below the surface, cracks that betrayed the careful placement of a chisel and the pounding of a mallet. The most beautiful piece of stone could shatter into a pile of riprap. It all depended on where those cracks teased and wound, on where the stone would fracture when forced apart.
“Keep your eyes open, Adele. I don’t know who it will be—a steam driller, boxer, derrickman, powderman? Maybe a stonecutter like your father?”
I turned away from her, feigning disinterest. “There’s no predicting, I told her.”
― Chandra Prasad

“Some years ago I talked to a clever young Northern businessman, who prides himself on his culture, yet was shocked that Yale’s football team had chosen a Negro, Levi Jackson, as its captain. Such a mind, with all its outward trappings of modernity and elegance, is completely out of tune with the real world.”
― John LaFarge S.J., The Catholic Viewpoint on Race Relations

“People ask me, "Why do you go to Yale?"
and I say, "Why do you stay home?”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“...if you can't treat this person properly there is something fundamentally wrong with your system.”
― Jonathan Scott Holloway