Happy Accidents Quotes

“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“Discovery requires serendipity. But serendipity is not a chance event alone. It is a process in which a chance event is seized upon by a creative person who chooses to pay attention to the event, unravel its mystery, and find a proper application for it.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“Penicillin as a chemotherapeutic agent,” appeared in August 1940 in the Lancet, the most widely read British medical journal.23 The journal's editors, recognizing the landmark results, had rushed it into print, two weeks before the Battle of Britain began.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they confiscated all books about Ehrlich and burned them in an attempt to expunge his name from German history.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“Ehrlich found a great source of happiness in the first postcard he received from a cured patient. He kept this always in his wallet in the breast pocket of his coat.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“15 percent of the adult population in major cities like Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“tuberculosis was then responsible for one in seven of all European deaths.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century

“As Winston Churchill whimsically observed, “Men occasionally stumble across the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”
― Morton A. Meyers, Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century