Einstein Said Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again Expecting

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?

Beloved Quote Investigator: Information technology'southward foolish to echo ineffective deportment. One popular formulation presents this point harshly:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over over again and expecting a different issue.

These words are normally credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do you think?

Quote Investigator: There is no substantive bear witness that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement in a higher place. It is listed within a section called "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton University Press. ^[i] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Folio 474, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)

The earliest strong friction match known to QI appeared in October 1981 within a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article describing a meeting of Al-Betimes, an arrangement designed to assist the families of alcoholics. The announcer described the "Twelve Steps" of Al-Betimes which are based on similar steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The newspaper began with these two steps: ^[2] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Sentinel Al-Anon Helps Family, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Folio F17, Column two, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)

Step 1: Nosotros admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Came to believe that a Ability greater than ourselves could restore united states to sanity

One of the attendees at the coming together hesitated to accept the accuracy of second pace. 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 bespeak of insanity. But another remarks, "Insanity is doing the same matter over and over again and expecting different results."

The second primeval strong match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organization in November 1981: ^[3] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Bones Text Approval Course, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Pace Ii, Page eleven, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, W.S.C.-Literature … Continue reading

The cost may seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a set than it is for the aficionado who merely lies to a doctor, but ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting unlike results.

QI acquired a PDF of the document with the quotation above on the website amonymifoundation.org back in February 2011. The document stated that is was printed in November 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, but the certificate remains available via the Internet Archive Wayback Motorcar database.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
The linkage between 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 example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck's "La Princesse Maleine": ^[4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration by Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the 2d Edition of the German language Work), Quote Page 238, D. Appleton and Visitor. (Google Books Total View) link

Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds e'er seen such complete idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or five times of the aforementioned imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those most extolled by Maeterlinck's admirers.

When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau'due south opus he turned the criticism of repetition back upon the author and suggested that Nordau might diagnose himself as mentally unsound: ^[5] 1895 July 27, Freedom, Volume 11, Number 6, A Degenerate'southward View of Nordau past Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column ane, Published past Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Go along reading

I have read Max Nordau's "Degeneration" at your request,—two hundred and sixty 1000 mortal words, proverb the same matter over and once again. That, as yous know, is the way to drive a thing into the mind of the globe, though Nordau considers information technology a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who exercise not share his own opinions. His bulletin to the world is that all our characteristically modernistic works of fine art are symptoms of disease in the artists, and that these diseased artists are themselves symptoms of the nervous exhaustion of the race past overwork.

The 1955 book "The Psychology of Personal Constructs" past George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the saying under investigation although information technology employed a different vocabulary: ^[6] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume ii: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Folio 831, Published by Westward. W. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on newspaper)

From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs nosotros may define a disorder every bit whatever personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, as psychological thinking ordinarily goes.

In October 1981 an educator and counselor on family unit relationships delivered a speech containing a thematically related adage: ^[7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentry, Search For Quality Called Fundamental To Life past Tom Ahern, Quote Page v, Column v, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)

"If you always do what you've always done, you always become what you've always gotten." That was the communication of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday's opening of the 7th annual Woman to Woman briefing.

More data most the quotation above is bachelor hither.

In October 1981 the saying was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Anon meeting as noted previously:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over once more and expecting different results.

In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous contained a close match as noted previously:

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a character within the book: ^[8] 1983, Sudden Death past Rita Mae Brown, Chapter 4, Quote Folio 68, Published by Bantam Books, New York. (Verified with scans)

The trouble with Susan was that she made the aforementioned mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in love with a woman and consume her. Susan idea that her mere presence was enough. What more than was there to requite? When she tired, usually after a year or and then, she'd find another woman.

Unfortunately, Susan didn't recall what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over once again, but expecting unlike results."

A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Death" in "The Blaring-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the proverb: ^[9] 1983 June 19, The Blaring-Ledger, "Sudden Death" a circuitous metaphor by Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" past Rita Mae Brown), Quote Folio 7H, Cavalcade ii, … Continue reading

Women's tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the critical sports writer who contends "Modern professional sports rewards players for function instead of character. Responsibility is unremarkably defined as doing a job ameliorate than anyone else." She looks askance at professional person lawn tennis and says "Win and get a god. Lose and be forgotten." Finally afterwards following the lives and careers of the players, and the game itself, she concludes, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and once more, but expecting unlike results."

As well in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, offered a counterpoint perspective in his piece of work "Worstward Ho": ^[x] 1983, Worstward Ho past Samuel Beckett, Quote Page 7, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)

All of quondam. Aught else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Endeavor once more. Fail over again. Fail better.

In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the television comedy series "Nighttime Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: ^[eleven] 1986 January v, The Sydney Morning Herald, Television set with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Nighttime Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Column iii, Sydney, New … Go along reading

He pops in a definition of insanity – "Information technology's 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 edifice, up to the 39th flooring, jumping and expecting information technology to be unlike. Information technology is NEVER dissimilar."

In April 1986 an opinion piece by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morning News" of Texas included the saying: ^[12] 1986 April 25, The Dallas Morn News, Leadership Beyond Ethnicity Should Be Goal of Dallasites past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access World News)

I once heard insanity defined every bit a process past which an individual or a system does something over and over once more in the aforementioned way while yet expecting unlike results. To continue to evaluate and accost bug in our customs strictly along ethnic, instead of human, considerations is insane if but for i reason: It will atomic number 82 to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.

The 1988 book "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent Earth" included an instance: ^[13] 1988 Copyright, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent Globe: Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Page 174, Published past … Keep reading

Flexibility is the ability to bend when we 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 example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the post-obit remark made by Travis Canton District Chaser Ronnie Earle: ^[xiv] 1990 November 19, Austin American-Statesman, Department: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices past Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access Globe … Continue reading

Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same matter over and over and expecting a different consequence.

In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana judge who ascribed another version of the saying to Einstein: ^[xv] 1991 July iv, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business organization by Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)

The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein'southward definition of insanity: "doing the aforementioned thing over and over and expecting a unlike outcome."

In 2000 a columnist working for the Knight Ridder News Service ascribed a version of the saying to the influential lecturer and trainer Werner Erhard although the name was misspelled as "Erhart": ^[16] 2000 July 30, The Indianapolis Star, Go a plan to overcome problem spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Folio J3, Column ane, 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 issues?

In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted two characters conversing; the beginning mentioned the at present well-known definition of insanity, and the 2d replied with a remark that implicitly and cleverly practical the logic of the definition to his companion: ^[17] Website: xkcd Comic, Comic championship: Insanity, Comic writer: Randall Munroe, Date on website: March xviii, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (Accessed xkcd.com … Continue reading

You've been quoting that cliché for years. Has it convinced anyone to change their mind all the same?

In determination, based on electric current evidence the saying originated in ane of the twelve-stride communities. Anonymity is greatly valued in these communities, and no specific author has been identified by the many researchers who have explored the provenance of this adage. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years later on his death and is unsupported.

Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at i 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.

(Great 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 formulate this question and perform this exploration. Special thanks to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous citation. Too, cheers to the valuable inquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many cheers to Bill Mullins who located the of import October 11, 1981 commendation.)

Update History: On July 31, 2019 the October 11, 1981 citation was added to the article.

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Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/

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