Who Said Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results
Albert Einstein? Al-Betimes? 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'south foolish to repeat ineffective actions. One popular conception presents this point harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and once again and expecting a different result.
These words are unremarkably credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do yous think?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the argument above. It is listed inside a section chosen "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton University Press. [ane] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited past Alice Calaprice, Section: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Folio 474, Princeton Academy Printing, Princeton, New Bailiwick of jersey. (Verified on newspaper)
The primeval strong match known to QI appeared in October 1981 within a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper commodity describing a coming together of Al-Anon, an organization designed to help the families of alcoholics. The journalist described the "Twelve Steps" of Al-Anon which are based on similar steps employed in Alcoholics Bearding. The newspaper began with these 2 steps: [ii] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Picket Al-Anon Helps Family, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Page F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Step 1: We admitted nosotros were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
Ane of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to accept the accuracy of second pace. Accent 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 doggedly maintains that she had never reached a point of insanity. Simply another remarks, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned matter over and over again and expecting different results."
The second earliest strong friction match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organisation in Nov 1981: [three] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Basic Text Approval Form, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Step 2, Page 11, Printed Nov 1981, Copyright 1981, W.S.C.-Literature … Continue reading
The price may seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a prepare than it is for the addict who merely lies to a doctor, merely ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting dissimilar results.
QI caused 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 information technology had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, simply the certificate remains available via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine database.
Beneath are boosted selected citations in chronological order.
The linkage between insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial book "Degeneration" past Max Nordau was published in German language in 1892 and translated into English language by 1895. Nordau examined the works of a diversity of artists and savagely attacked those that contained repetition which he believed evinced a mental defect in the creator. For case, 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 Folio 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Full View) link
Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds ever seen such consummate idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition iv or 5 times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture show of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those near extolled by Maeterlinck's admirers.
When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau's opus he turned the criticism of repetition back upon the author and suggested that Nordau might diagnose himself every bit mentally unsound: [5] 1895 July 27, Freedom, Volume 11, Number 6, A Degenerate'due south View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column ane, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Continue reading
I accept read Max Nordau'southward "Degeneration" at your request,—2 hundred and lx thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and over again. That, as yous know, is the way to drive a matter into the listen of the world, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane "obsession" on the office of writers who exercise non share his own opinions. His message 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 burnout of the race past overwork.
The 1955 volume "The Psychology of Personal Constructs" past George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the saying under investigation although it employed a different vocabulary: [half dozen] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume two: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Folio 831, Published by Due west. Due west. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder as whatever personal structure which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, as psychological thinking commonly goes.
In October 1981 an educator and counselor on family relationships delivered a speech communication containing a thematically related adage: [vii] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Chosen Fundamental To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Page 5, Cavalcade five, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you always do what y'all've ever done, yous always get what y'all've ever gotten." That was the communication of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Fri's opening of the seventh annual Woman to Woman briefing.
More information about the quotation above is available hither.
In October 1981 the saying was spoken past an attendee of an Al-Anon meeting as noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and again and expecting different results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Bearding contained a close match as noted previously:
Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting unlike results.
The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown included an case credited to Jane Fulton who was a graphic symbol within the book: [viii] 1983, Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brown, Chapter four, Quote Folio 68, Published by Runted Books, New York. (Verified with scans)
The trouble with Susan was that she made the same mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in honey with a woman and consume her. Susan idea that her mere presence was enough. What more was there to give? When she tired, usually after a year or so, she'd observe another adult female.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over over again, but expecting different results."
A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Decease" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying: [ix] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Expiry" a complex metaphor by Stephen 50. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown), Quote Page 7H, Cavalcade 2, … Proceed reading
Women's tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the disquisitional sports writer who contends "Modern professional sports rewards players for function instead of grapheme. Responsibility is normally divers equally doing a job better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional lawn tennis and says "Win and become a god. Lose and be forgotten." Finally later following the lives and careers of the players, and the game itself, she concludes, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned thing over and over and over once more, 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": [10] 1983, Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett, Quote Folio 7, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Nothing else always. Ever tried. E'er failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning thespian John Larroquette who was a star in the television one-act serial "Nighttime Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [11] 1986 January v, The Sydney Forenoon Herald, Television receiver with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Night Courtroom: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Column 3, Sydney, New … Continue reading
He pops in a definition of insanity – "It's the repetition of the same action expecting different results. Similar jumping out of a 40-storey building, breaking every bone, spending six months in hospital, going back to the same building, upwards to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting it to be different. It is NEVER different."
In April 1986 an opinion piece past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morning News" of Texas included the saying: [12] 1986 April 25, The Dallas Forenoon News, Leadership Across Ethnicity Should Be Goal of Dallasites by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access Globe News)
I once heard insanity defined every bit a process by which an private or a system does something over and over over again in the same style while notwithstanding expecting different results. To go on to evaluate and accost problems in our community strictly along ethnic, instead of homo, considerations is insane if but for 1 reason: It will lead to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.
The 1988 book "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World" included an instance: [13] 1988 Copyright, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent Globe: Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People past H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Folio 174, Published by … Continue reading
Flexibility is the ability to bend when nosotros discover ourselves in unworkable positions. A universal characteristic of insanity is inflexibly doing the same thing over and over while hoping for unlike results. Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental health.
Past 1990 the saying was existence attributed to Einstein. For example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made past Travis County Commune Chaser Ronnie Earle: [fourteen] 1990 November nineteen, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses hard choices by Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access Earth … Continue reading
Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana gauge who ascribed another version of the saying to Einstein: [fifteen] 1991 July 4, The Seattle Times, Department: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business concern by Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)
The jurist from the Hoosier Land subscribes to Albert Einstein'southward definition of insanity: "doing the same matter over and over and expecting a dissimilar outcome."
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 every bit "Erhart": [16] 2000 July thirty, The Indianapolis Star, Become a program to overcome trouble spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Page J3, Column 1, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity every bit 'repeating identical behavior and expecting a unlike effect.' If we repeatedly have difficulties in an surface area of life, doesn't it make sense that our behaviors cause the problems?
In 2022 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted two characters conversing; the start mentioned the at present well-known definition of insanity, and the second replied with a remark that implicitly and cleverly applied the logic of the definition to his companion: [17] Website: xkcd Comic, Comic title: Insanity, Comic author: Randall Munroe, Date on website: March xviii, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (Accessed xkcd.com … Continue reading
Y'all've been quoting that cliché for years. Has it convinced anyone to alter their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on current evidence the saying originated in one of the twelve-step communities. Anonymity is greatly valued in these communities, and no specific writer 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.
Epitome Notes: 2 arrows pointing at ane another from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait of Albert Einstein circa 1921 past Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Images take 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 commendation. Also, thanks to the valuable research conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thank you to Beak 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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