QuoteProject
To be totally without stress is to be dead.
Hans Selye
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Stress is an inherent part of life, and its absence indicates a lack of vitality.

Hans Selye's quote emphasizes that stress is a natural and essential component of life. While excessive stress can be harmful, some level of stress is necessary for growth, motivation, and engagement with the world, suggesting that to experience life fully, one must embrace its challenges.

Themes

StressLifeGrowthVitalityChallenges

In practice

Example use cases

During a wellness seminar to illustrate the importance of managing stress.

More from Hans Selye

Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.
Hans SelyeRead
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.
Hans SelyeRead
Stress is not necessarily something bad it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental.
Hans SelyeRead

Similar quotes

My childhood was quite extreme. Sometimes I was so weak I could not stand up. But now I am so strong. Life is unpredictable
Ai WeiweiRead
Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
Bram StokerRead
Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
Everything is barely weeks. Everything is days. We have minutes to live.
Don DelilloRead
life's kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is just a blur. But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. The painting could be of the sea, the sky, people,buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was.
Cecelia AhernRead
Yeah, that's funny, huh?...Something hurts you real bad and you get used to it. Like being hurt becomes part of who you are.
Walter Dean MyersRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.