Hans Selye Quotes

Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.

Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.

Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.

Mental tensions, frustrations, insecurity, aimlessness are among the most damaging stressors, and psychosomatic studies have shown how often they cause migraine headache, peptic ulcers, heart attacks, hypertension, mental disease, suicide, or just hopeless unhappiness.

As much as we thirst for approval we dread condemnation.

If you want to live a long life, focus on making contributions.

To make a great dream come true, you must first have a great dream.

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not, and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. We all had this priceless talent when we were young. But as time goes by, many of us lose it. The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement. It is the essence of his being.

The element of chance in basic research is overrated. Chance is a lady who smiles only upon those few who know how to make her smile.

I doubt that Fleming could have obtained a grant for the discovery of penicillin on that basis [a requirement for highly detailed research plans] because he could not have said, 'I propose to have an accident in a culture so that it will be spoiled by a mould falling on it, and I propose to recognize the possibility of extracting an antibiotic from this mould.'