The Point of Insanity Is Trying Things Over and Over Again
Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brown? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?
Dear Quote Investigator: It'southward foolish to repeat ineffective actions. I pop conception presents this signal harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the aforementioned matter over and over again and expecting a different result.
These words are normally credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do you think?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the argument above. Information technology is listed within a section chosen "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton University Press. [1] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Department: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Page 474, Princeton University Printing, Princeton, New Bailiwick of jersey. (Verified on paper)
The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in Oct 1981 inside a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article describing a meeting of Al-Anon, an organization designed to aid the families of alcoholics. The journalist described the "Twelve Steps" of Al-Anon which are based on similar steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The newspaper began with these two steps: [2] 1981 October eleven, The Knoxville News-Sentinel Al-Betimes Helps Family unit, Friends to Orderly Lives past Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Folio F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Pace 1: Nosotros admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had go unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore usa to sanity
One of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to have the accuracy of 2d step. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:
Not all the women are willing to admit they needed to be "restored to sanity." In fact, one of them adamantly maintains that she had never reached a point of insanity. Only another remarks, "Insanity is doing the same matter over and over again and expecting unlike results."
The 2d primeval strong friction match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organization in November 1981: [3] 1981, Narcotics Bearding Pamphlet, (Basic Text Approving Class, Unpublished Literary Work), Affiliate Four: How Information technology Works, Step Two, Page 11, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, W.S.C.-Literature … Proceed reading
The price may seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a fix than information technology is for the addict who merely lies to a doctor, just ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
QI acquired a PDF of the document with the quotation above on the website amonymifoundation.org back in February 2011. The certificate stated that is was printed in Nov 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, simply the document remains bachelor via the Internet Archive Wayback Auto database.
Below are boosted selected citations in chronological order.
The linkage betwixt insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial book "Degeneration" by Max Nordau was published in German in 1892 and translated into English by 1895. Nordau examined the works of a multifariousness of artists and savagely attacked those that contained repetition which he believed evinced a mental defect in the creator. For instance, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck's "La Princesse Maleine": [4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration by Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the Second Edition of the German Work), Quote Page 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Full View) link
Has anyone anywhere in the poesy of the two worlds ever seen such complete idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this desire of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or five times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those most extolled by Maeterlinck'southward admirers.
When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau'southward opus he turned the criticism of repetition back upon the writer and suggested that Nordau might diagnose himself as mentally unsound: [v] 1895 July 27, Liberty, Volume xi, Number 6, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Folio ii, Column one, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Continue reading
I have read Max Nordau'south "Degeneration" at your asking,—2 hundred and sixty thou mortal words, saying the same thing over and over once again. That, as you know, is the mode to drive a thing into the heed of the globe, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who do not share his own opinions. His message to the world is that all our characteristically modern works of art are symptoms of disease in the artists, and that these diseased artists are themselves symptoms of the nervous burnout of the race by overwork.
The 1955 book "The Psychology of Personal Constructs" by George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the proverb under investigation although it employed a different vocabulary: [vi] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume ii: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published by W. West. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder equally whatsoever personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, every bit psychological thinking normally goes.
In October 1981 an educator and advisor on family relationships delivered a speech containing a thematically related adage: [7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Called Central To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Page 5, Cavalcade five, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you lot always do what yous've always done, you ever get what you've always gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Fri's opening of the seventh annual Woman to Adult female briefing.
More information about the quotation above is available hither.
In Oct 1981 the saying was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Betimes meeting as noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over over again and expecting unlike results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous independent a close match as noted previously:
Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brownish included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a character within the book: [8] 1983, Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brown, Affiliate 4, Quote Page 68, Published by Bantam Books, New York. (Verified with scans)
The trouble with Susan was that she made the same mistakes repeatedly. She'd autumn in love with a adult female and consume her. Susan thought that her mere presence was enough. What more was there to requite? When she tired, ordinarily after a year or and so, she'd find some other woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't recollect what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the aforementioned thing over and over over again, but expecting different results."
A June 1983 volume review of "Sudden Death" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying: [9] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Decease" a complex metaphor by Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" past Rita Mae Brownish), Quote Page 7H, Column ii, … Continue reading
Women's tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the critical sports writer who contends "Modernistic professional sports rewards players for function instead of grapheme. Responsibleness is normally defined as doing a job better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional lawn tennis and says "Win and become a god. Lose and exist forgotten." Finally after following the lives and careers of the players, and the game itself, she concludes, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, but expecting different results."
Also in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, offered a counterpoint perspective in his work "Worstward Ho": [x] 1983, Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett, Quote Page vii, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Aught else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No affair. Try once more. Fail over again. Neglect better.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning player John Larroquette who was a star in the television comedy series "Nighttime Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [xi] 1986 Jan 5, The Sydney Morning Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drinkable to… Nighttime Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Cavalcade 3, Sydney, New … Continue reading
He pops in a definition of insanity – "It'south the repetition of the same action expecting different results. Like jumping out of a 40-storey building, breaking every os, spending six months in hospital, going back to the same building, upwardly to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting information technology to be different. Information technology is NEVER different."
In Apr 1986 an opinion piece by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morn News" of Texas included the maxim: [12] 1986 Apr 25, The Dallas Morning News, Leadership Beyond Ethnicity Should Exist Goal of Dallasites past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access Earth News)
I in one case heard insanity divers as a process by which an individual or a system does something over and over again in the same way while yet expecting unlike results. To continue to evaluate and address issues in our customs strictly along indigenous, instead of human being, considerations is insane if only for one reason: It volition pb to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.
The 1988 volume "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World" included an instance: [xiii] 1988 Copyright, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Cocky-Indulgent World: Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Folio 174, Published by … Go along reading
Flexibility is the ability to bend when nosotros find ourselves in unworkable positions. A universal characteristic of insanity is inflexibly doing the same thing over and over while hoping for different results. Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental health.
By 1990 the saying was beingness attributed to Einstein. For instance, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made by Travis Canton District Chaser Ronnie Earle: [14] 1990 November 19, Austin American-Statesman, Department: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices by Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access World … Keep reading
Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same affair over and over and expecting a dissimilar result.
In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana approximate who ascribed another version of the maxim to Einstein: [15] 1991 July iv, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business by Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access Globe News)
The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the same affair over and over and expecting a different upshot."
In 2000 a columnist working for the Knight Ridder News Service ascribed a version of the maxim to the influential lecturer and trainer Werner Erhard although the proper name was misspelled equally "Erhart": [xvi] 2000 July 30, The Indianapolis Star, Get a program to overcome trouble spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Page J3, Column i, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical behavior and expecting a different result.' If we repeatedly have difficulties in an area of life, doesn't it make sense that our behaviors cause the bug?
In 2022 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted ii characters conversing; the get-go mentioned the now well-known definition of insanity, and the second replied with a remark that implicitly and cleverly practical the logic of the definition to his companion: [17] Website: xkcd Comic, Comic title: Insanity, Comic author: Randall Munroe, Appointment on website: March 18, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (Accessed xkcd.com … Continue reading
You've been quoting that platitude for years. Has it convinced anyone to modify their mind even so?
In conclusion, based on current evidence the maxim originated in one of the twelve-step communities. Anonymity is greatly valued in these communities, and no specific author has been identified by the many researchers who take explored the provenance of this adage. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years later on his expiry and is unsupported.
Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at one some other from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait of Albert Einstein circa 1921 by Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Images have been retouched, cropped and resized.
(Groovy thanks to MJ Redman, Kevin Ashton, Melinda Denson, Linda Sternhill Davis, The Muser, Mededitor, Santanu Vasant, Simon Lancaster, Michael Cochran, David Meadows, J Carson, Guilherme Simões, Ed Darrell, Lee Winkelman, and Fabius Maximus (Ed.) whose inquiries led QI to codify this question and perform this exploration. Special thanks to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous citation. Likewise, thanks to the valuable enquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many cheers to Bill Mullins who located the important October 11, 1981 citation.)
Update History: On July 31, 2022 the October 11, 1981 citation was added to the article.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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