Voices of Yale’s Past

Listen to the Voices of Yale’s Past

“Awake . . . ‘While it is called today; Arise; stand upon your feet’; ply the work of your salvation; repent; believe; escape for your lives; or the night will be upon you, in which you will sleep, to wake no more.”

(Timothy Dwight, President of Yale 1795-1817)

“Were [atheists] satisfied of the goodness of their cause, and the soundness of their arguments, they would not, it is presumed so often resort to ridicule instead of reasoning nor intrench themselves behind insolence and contempt, instead of facts and evidence.”

(Timothy Dwight, President of Yale, 1795-1817)

“[Jesus] has not grown old. His Gospel is not worn out: He is ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.’ Oh, it is a serious mistake that you have ever been led to think that your comfort can be drawn from any other quarter.”

(Theodore Dwight Woolsey, President of Yale 1846-1871)

“I am aware, blessed God, that my mind is dark and ignorant by nature; still, enough is brought to light in nature and revelation to justify our faith in what we cannot now understand; and what we may know hereafter.”

(Benjamin Silliman, 1802-1853, Yale Professor of Chemistry and Natural History, a founder of the Yale Medical School)

President Theodore Dwight Woolsey’s wish for Yale on her 150th Birthday:
“Above and before all may God be present to give light and to leaven with his holy influence all study and discipline. But if,—which may he avert,—she should desert his ways, and give herself up to evil and to falsehood, I pray not for her prosperity:—I rather pray that she may fall.”

“I am taught now the utter insufficiency of our own powers to effect a change of heart, and am persuaded, that a reliance on our talents and powers is a fatal error, springing from natural pride and opposition to God.”

(Noah Webster, Yale 1778)

“Every student shall consider the end of his study to wit to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a Godly sober life.”

(From “Orders and Appointments to be Observed in the Collegiate School in Connecticut,” 1726)