Wat the Same Thing Again and Again

Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Dark-brown? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?

Dear Quote Investigator: It's foolish to repeat ineffective actions. One popular formulation presents this bespeak harshly:

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

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

Quote Investigator: In that location is no substantive prove that Einstein wrote or spoke the argument in a higher place. It is listed within a department called "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 Folio 474, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)

The primeval strong match known to QI appeared in October 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 newspaper began with these two steps: ^[2] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Sentry Al-Anon Helps Family, Friends to Orderly Lives past Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Author), Quote Page F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)

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

Footstep 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore the states to sanity

One of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to accept the accuracy of second step. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:

Non all the women are willing to admit they needed to be "restored to sanity." In fact, i of them adamantly maintains that she had never reached a point of insanity. But another remarks, "Insanity is doing the same matter over and over once more and expecting different results."

The second earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed past the Narcotics Bearding arrangement in November 1981: ^[3] 1981, Narcotics Bearding Pamphlet, (Bones Text Approving Form, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Step Two, Page 11, Printed Nov 1981, Copyright 1981, W.S.C.-Literature … Continue reading

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

QI acquired a PDF of the document with the quotation above on the website amonymifoundation.org dorsum in Feb 2011. The document stated that is was printed in November 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was later reorganized, merely the document remains bachelor via the Internet Annal Wayback Machine database.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
The linkage betwixt insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial volume "Degeneration" by Max Nordau was published in German language in 1892 and translated into English by 1895. Nordau examined the works of a variety 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": ^[four] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration past 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 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 virtually 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: ^[5] 1895 July 27, Liberty, Volume eleven, Number 6, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Cavalcade ane, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Continue reading

I have read Max Nordau's "Degeneration" at your request,—two hundred and 60 thousand mortal words, saying the aforementioned thing over and over over again. That, as you know, is the mode to drive a thing into the mind of the world, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane "obsession" on the role of writers who do not share his own opinions. His message to the world is that all our characteristically modern 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 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: ^[6] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Book ii: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published by Westward. 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 construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, equally psychological thinking unremarkably goes.

In October 1981 an educator and advisor on family relationships delivered a speech containing a thematically related aphorism: ^[seven] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Called Key To Life past Tom Ahern, Quote Folio 5, Column 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)

"If you always exercise what y'all've always washed, yous always become what you've always gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday'southward opening of the seventh almanac Woman to Adult female briefing.

More than information nearly the quotation above is bachelor here.

In Oct 1981 the saying was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Anon meeting every bit noted previously:

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

In Nov 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Bearding independent a close match equally noted previously:

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting dissimilar results.

The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brownish included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a character within the book: ^[viii] 1983, Sudden Expiry 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 aforementioned mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in love with a woman and consume her. Susan thought that her mere presence was enough. What more was in that location to requite? When she tired, commonly after a twelvemonth or so, she'd observe another woman.

Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the same matter over and over again, merely expecting different results."

A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Death" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the maxim: ^[nine] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Expiry" a complex metaphor by Stephen Fifty. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown), Quote Page 7H, Column 2, … Continue reading

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

Also in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, offered a counterpoint perspective in his piece of work "Worstward Ho": ^[10] 1983, Worstward Ho past Samuel Beckett, Quote Page 7, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)

All of erstwhile. Zip else e'er. E'er tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail improve.

In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the television comedy series "Night Court" shared the definition during a paper interview: ^[xi] 1986 Jan 5, The Sydney Morning Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Night Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Column 3, Sydney, New … Continue reading

He pops in a definition of insanity – "It'due south the repetition of the same action expecting unlike results. Like jumping out of a twoscore-storey edifice, breaking every bone, spending six months in hospital, going back to the aforementioned building, upwardly to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting it to be different. It is NEVER dissimilar."

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

I once heard insanity defined as a procedure by which an private or a organization does something over and over once again in the aforementioned way while all the same expecting different results. To continue to evaluate and address issues in our community strictly forth ethnic, instead of human, considerations is insane if just for ane reason: Information technology volition atomic number 82 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 Cocky-Indulgent World: Seven Edifice Blocks for Developing Capable Immature People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Page 174, Published past … Go along reading

Flexibility is the ability to bend when we notice ourselves in unworkable positions. A universal feature of insanity is inflexibly doing the same thing over and over while hoping for dissimilar results. Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental health.

Past 1990 the maxim was being attributed to Einstein. For instance, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle: ^[14] 1990 November nineteen, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of price explosion poses difficult choices by Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access World … Continue reading

Einstein in one case said that insanity is doing the same affair over and over and expecting a different result.

In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana judge who ascribed another version of the saying to Einstein: ^[15] 1991 July four, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business past Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)

The jurist from the Hoosier Land subscribes to Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the aforementioned affair over and over and expecting a dissimilar 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": ^[sixteen] 2000 July 30, The Indianapolis Star, Get a plan to overcome trouble spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Folio J3, Cavalcade 1, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)

Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical beliefs and expecting a different result.' If we repeatedly have difficulties in an area of life, doesn't it brand sense that our behaviors cause the problems?

In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted two characters conversing; the first 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 championship: 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

You've been quoting that cliché for years. Has it convinced anyone to change their listen yet?

In conclusion, based on current prove the saying originated in one of the twelve-step communities. Anonymity is greatly valued in these communities, and no specific author has been identified past the many researchers who have explored the provenance of this aphorism. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years later on his death and is unsupported.

Paradigm Notes: Two arrows pointing at one another 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 codify this question and perform this exploration. Special thanks to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous commendation. Likewise, thanks to the valuable inquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thanks 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 article.

emersonhorlsonflon.blogspot.com

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