Sensitive Doing Something Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results
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: Information technology'due south foolish to repeat ineffective actions. One pop formulation presents this betoken harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same matter over and over again and expecting a different result.
These words are unremarkably credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What exercise you call up?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive testify that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement above. It 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, Section: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Page 474, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Bailiwick of jersey. (Verified on paper)
The primeval strong match known to QI appeared in Oct 1981 within a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article describing a meeting 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 Anonymous. The paper began with these two steps: [ii] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Lookout man Al-Betimes Helps Family, Friends to Orderly Lives past Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Author), Quote Page F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Stride 1: We admitted we were powerless over booze – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
One of the attendees at the meeting 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 point of insanity. But some other remarks, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned thing over and again and expecting different results."
The 2nd primeval strong friction match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Bearding organization in November 1981: [3] 1981, Narcotics Bearding Pamphlet, (Basic Text Blessing Form, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Footstep 2, Folio 11, Printed Nov 1981, Copyright 1981, West.S.C.-Literature … Keep reading
The price may seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a fix than it is for the addict who only lies to a doctor, but ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
QI acquired a PDF of the certificate with the quotation above on the website amonymifoundation.org back in February 2011. The certificate stated that is was printed in November 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, but the document remains bachelor via the Net Archive Wayback Machine database.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological social club.
The linkage betwixt insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial volume "Degeneration" past Max Nordau was published in German 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'south "La Princesse Maleine": [4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration by Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the Second Edition of the High german Piece of work), Quote Page 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Total View) link
Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds ever seen such complete idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this desire of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition 4 or five times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest believable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those most extolled past 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 as mentally unsound: [v] 1895 July 27, Freedom, Volume 11, Number 6, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column 1, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Go along reading
I have read Max Nordau's "Degeneration" at your asking,—ii hundred and sixty thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and over again. That, every bit you know, is the way to drive a thing into the mind of the world, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who do non 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 exhaustion of the race by overwork.
The 1955 book "The Psychology of Personal Constructs" by George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the saying under investigation although it employed a different vocabulary: [six] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Book 2: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published by West. W. Norton & Visitor, New York. (Verified on newspaper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may ascertain a disorder as any 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 advisor on family unit relationships delivered a oral communication containing a thematically related adage: [vii] 1981 Oct 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Called Central To Life past Tom Ahern, Quote Folio v, Column 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you always do what you've e'er done, you e'er get what yous've always gotten." That was the communication of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday's opening of the seventh annual Woman to Woman conference.
More data about the quotation in a higher place is bachelor here.
In October 1981 the saying was spoken past an attendee of an Al-Anon meeting every bit noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over once more and expecting unlike results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous contained a close friction 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 example credited to Jane Fulton who was a character inside the volume: [8] 1983, Sudden Expiry by Rita Mae Brown, Chapter iv, Quote Folio 68, Published by Bantam Books, New York. (Verified with scans)
The trouble with Susan was that she fabricated the same mistakes repeatedly. She'd autumn in love with a woman and eat her. Susan thought that her mere presence was enough. What more was there to requite? When she tired, ordinarily later on a yr or so, she'd detect another woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't retrieve what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the aforementioned affair over and over once again, only expecting different results."
A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Decease" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the maxim: [9] 1983 June xix, The Blaring-Ledger, "Sudden Death" a complex metaphor past Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brownish), Quote Page 7H, Cavalcade 2, … Continue reading
Women's tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the disquisitional sports writer who contends "Modernistic professional sports rewards players for office instead of character. Responsibility is normally defined equally doing a job better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional lawn tennis and says "Win and get a god. Lose and be forgotten." Finally subsequently following the lives and careers of the players, and the game itself, she concludes, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned affair 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 past Samuel Beckett, Quote Page 7, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Nil else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try over again. Fail again. Fail amend.
In Jan 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the tv set comedy series "Nighttime Courtroom" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [11] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Morning Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Night Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Folio 31, Column three, 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 aforementioned building, upward to the 39th flooring, jumping and expecting it to be different. It is NEVER different."
In April 1986 an stance piece by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morning News" of Texas included the proverb: [12] 1986 April 25, The Dallas Morn News, Leadership Beyond Ethnicity Should Exist Goal of Dallasites by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access Earth News)
I once heard insanity defined as a procedure by which an individual or a system does something over and again in the aforementioned way while still expecting different results. To continue to evaluate and address bug in our customs strictly along ethnic, instead of human, considerations is insane if only for 1 reason: Information technology volition lead to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.
The 1988 book "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Cocky-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 Page 174, Published by … Continue reading
Flexibility is the ability to curve when nosotros detect 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 confront of changing circumstances, by contrast, is a authentication of mental health.
By 1990 the proverb was existence attributed to Einstein. For example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made by Travis Canton Commune Attorney Ronnie Earle: [xiv] 1990 November nineteen, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices past Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access World … Continue reading
Einstein in one case 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 guess who ascribed another version of the saying to Einstein: [15] 1991 July four, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business by Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Admission World News)
The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the aforementioned thing over and over and expecting a different 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 proper noun was misspelled as "Erhart": [xvi] 2000 July 30, The Indianapolis Star, Go a plan to overcome trouble spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Page J3, Column one, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical behavior and expecting a dissimilar result.' If we repeatedly have difficulties in an area of life, doesn't it make sense that our behaviors cause the bug?
In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted ii characters conversing; the outset mentioned the now 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, Engagement on website: March eighteen, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and linguistic communication. (Accessed xkcd.com … Go on reading
You lot've been quoting that platitude for years. Has it convinced anyone to change their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on electric current evidence the saying 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 have explored the provenance of this aphorism. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years subsequently his death and is unsupported.
Epitome Notes: Two arrows pointing at ane 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 thank you 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. Too, thanks to the valuable research 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, 2019 the October 11, 1981 citation was added to the commodity.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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