Furious at myself for not keeping track of where I got this from:

"all systems are what emerges over its history of adaptation to stressors" — David Woods

Any clues?

@RuthMalan My best guess is that it's from his Resilience Engineering lectures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y20ssNkxuds&list=PLvlZBj1NU_in4TgQ2HFoztPMETMNRfFPl&index=1
Resilience Engineering 101: Part 1 = It's all about viability

YouTube