Doing Same Thing Over Again and Expect a Different Outcome Is Insanity
Albert Einstein? Al-Betimes? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Chocolate-brown? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?
Dear Quote Investigator: It'south foolish to repeat ineffective actions. One popular formulation presents this betoken harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same matter over and over once again and expecting a different result.
These words are unremarkably credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do you think?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive prove that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement above. It is listed inside 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 Page 474, Princeton University Printing, Princeton, New Bailiwick of 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-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 Oct 11, The Knoxville News-Spotter Al-Betimes Helps Family unit, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Folio F17, Cavalcade 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Stride 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 united states to sanity
One of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to accept the accuracy of second 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 doggedly maintains that she had never reached a point of insanity. But another remarks, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned thing over and over again and expecting unlike results."
The 2d earliest strong lucifer known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous system in November 1981: [3] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Basic Text Blessing Form, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Iv: How It Works, Footstep Two, Page 11, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, Westward.S.C.-Literature … Continue reading
The price may seem higher for the aficionado who prostitutes for a ready 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 dissimilar results.
QI caused a PDF of the document with the quotation above on the website amonymifoundation.org back in Feb 2011. The document stated that is was printed in November 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright find. The website was afterward reorganized, simply the certificate remains bachelor via the Cyberspace Annal Wayback Machine database.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological lodge.
The linkage between insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial book "Degeneration" by Max Nordau was published in High german in 1892 and translated into English language by 1895. Nordau examined the works of a diverseness 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 High german Piece of work), Quote Page 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Full View) link
Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds ever seen such complete idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or 5 times of the aforementioned imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those virtually 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 as mentally unsound: [5] 1895 July 27, Freedom, Volume xi, Number half dozen, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Folio two, Cavalcade one, 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 sixty thousand mortal words, maxim the aforementioned thing over and again. That, as you know, is the fashion to bulldoze a thing into the mind of the globe, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who practice not share his own opinions. His message to the earth 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 past 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: [6] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume ii: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published past Due west. W. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs nosotros may ascertain a disorder as any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, every bit psychological thinking unremarkably goes.
In Oct 1981 an educator and counselor on family relationships delivered a speech containing a thematically related adage: [7] 1981 Oct 24, The Milwaukee Watch, Search For Quality Called Primal To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Folio 5, Column 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you always practice what you've always done, y'all always get what you've always gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday's opening of the seventh annual Woman to Woman conference.
More data about the quotation above is bachelor here.
In Oct 1981 the maxim was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Anon coming together as noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
In Nov 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 Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a grapheme within the book: [viii] 1983, Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brown, Chapter 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 fall in dearest with a adult female and consume her. Susan thought that her mere presence was enough. What more than was there to requite? When she tired, usually after a year or so, she'd find another woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton one time said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and once more, merely expecting dissimilar results."
A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Death" in "The Blaring-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying: [9] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Expiry" a complex metaphor by Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Chocolate-brown), Quote Folio 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 role instead of grapheme. Responsibility is normally defined as doing a job better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional tennis and says "Win and get 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, merely expecting different results."
Likewise 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 Page vii, Grove Printing Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Aught else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Neglect better.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the television comedy series "Night Courtroom" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [eleven] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Forenoon Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Night Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Cavalcade 3, Sydney, New … Continue reading
He pops in a definition of insanity – "It'southward the repetition of the same action expecting dissimilar results. Like jumping out of a 40-storey building, breaking every os, spending half dozen months in hospital, going back to the same edifice, upward to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting it to be different. It is NEVER different."
In April 1986 an opinion piece by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morning News" of Texas included the saying: [12] 1986 Apr 25, The Dallas Forenoon News, Leadership Beyond Ethnicity Should Be Goal of Dallasites past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access World News)
I once heard insanity divers as a process by which an individual or a system does something over and once again in the aforementioned manner while all the same expecting different results. To continue to evaluate and address bug in our customs strictly along ethnic, instead of man, considerations is insane if just 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 Cocky-Reliant Children in a Cocky-Indulgent Earth: Vii Building Blocks for Developing Capable Immature People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Folio 174, Published past … Proceed reading
Flexibility is the ability to curve when we notice 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 authentication of mental health.
By 1990 the proverb was beingness attributed to Einstein. For example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle: [14] 1990 November xix, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices by Mike Ward, Quote Folio A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access Earth … Continue reading
Einstein once said that insanity is doing the aforementioned affair over and over and expecting a unlike result.
In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana judge who ascribed another version of the maxim to Einstein: [15] 1991 July four, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business organization by Don Williamson, Quote Folio A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)
The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the same matter 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, Become a program to overcome trouble spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Folio J3, Column 1, 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 information technology make sense that our behaviors cause the problems?
In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted ii characters conversing; the offset 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 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 yet?
In conclusion, based on current evidence the saying originated in one of the twelve-pace 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 after his death and is unsupported.
Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at 1 some other from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait of Albert Einstein circa 1921 by Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Eatables. Images have been retouched, cropped and resized.
(Bang-up 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 formulate 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 thank you to Bill Mullins who located the important October 11, 1981 citation.)
Update History: On July 31, 2019 the Oct 11, 1981 commendation was added to the article.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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