Making the Same Mistake Over and Over Again and Expecting a Different Outcome
Albert Einstein? Al-Betimes? 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 conception presents this signal harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same matter over and over again and expecting a different result.
These words are usually credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do you think?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement above. Information technology is listed inside a section 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 Page 474, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in October 1981 inside a Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article 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 like steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The newspaper began with these two steps: [2] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Sentinel Al-Anon Helps Family unit, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Author), Quote Page F17, Column ii, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Footstep 1: We admitted we were powerless over booze – that our lives had go unmanageable.
Stride two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
One of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to have the accuracy of second step. Emphasis added to excerpts past 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 signal of insanity. Only some other remarks, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned matter over and over over again and expecting different results."
The second earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Bearding arrangement in November 1981: [iii] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Basic Text Approval Class, Unpublished Literary Work), Affiliate Four: How Information technology Works, Step Ii, Page 11, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, West.S.C.-Literature … Continue reading
The price may seem college for the addict who prostitutes for a fix than it is for the aficionado who only lies to a md, simply ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different 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 Nov 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright observe. The website was after reorganized, but the certificate remains available via the Internet Archive Wayback Car 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 language in 1892 and translated into English by 1895. Nordau examined the works of a diverseness of artists and savagely attacked those that independent repetition which he believed evinced a mental defect in the creator. For example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck'south "La Princesse Maleine": [4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration past Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the Second Edition of the German Piece of work), Quote Folio 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Full View) link
Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds always seen such consummate 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 believable clinical moving picture 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 as mentally unsound: [five] 1895 July 27, Liberty, Volume 11, Number 6, A Degenerate'due south View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page ii, Cavalcade 1, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Go on reading
I have read Max Nordau'due south "Degeneration" at your request,—2 hundred and sixty m mortal words, saying the aforementioned thing over and over over again. That, equally you know, is the style to drive a affair into the listen of the world, though Nordau considers information technology a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who do non share his ain opinions. His message to the world is that all our characteristically mod 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" past George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the saying under investigation although information technology employed a different vocabulary: [six] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume two: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may ascertain a disorder as whatsoever 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 relationships delivered a spoken communication containing a thematically related adage: [7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Called Key To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Page 5, Column v, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you e'er do what you've always done, you always get what y'all've e'er gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday's opening of the 7th annual Adult female to Adult female briefing.
More information about the quotation above is available here.
In October 1981 the proverb was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Betimes meeting as noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and once again and expecting different results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Bearding contained a shut match as noted previously:
Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting unlike results.
The 1983 novel "Sudden Decease" by Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a grapheme within the book: [8] 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 aforementioned mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in love with a woman and eat her. Susan thought that her mere presence was enough. What more than was in that location to requite? When she tired, usually after a twelvemonth or so, she'd notice another woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."
A June 1983 volume review of "Sudden Death" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the maxim: [nine] 1983 June 19, The Blaring-Ledger, "Sudden Death" a complex metaphor past Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Expiry" by Rita Mae Brown), Quote Folio 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 function instead of character. Responsibleness is normally defined as doing a task better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional tennis and says "Win and become a god. Lose and be forgotten." Finally afterward 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 again, but 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 7, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Always failed. No thing. Attempt once again. Fail again. Fail improve.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the telly one-act serial "Dark Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [xi] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Forenoon Herald, Idiot box with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, potable to… Night Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Column 3, Sydney, New … Go on reading
He pops in a definition of insanity – "Information technology'due south 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 building, up to the 39th floor, 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 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 Admission Globe News)
I once heard insanity divers as a procedure by which an private or a system does something over and once more in the same way while yet expecting different results. To continue to evaluate and address issues in our customs strictly along ethnic, instead of man, considerations is insane if only for i 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: 7 Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Folio 174, Published by … Continue reading
Flexibility is the ability to bend when we notice ourselves in unworkable positions. A universal characteristic of insanity is inflexibly doing the aforementioned matter over and over while hoping for different results. Flexibility in the face of irresolute circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental health.
By 1990 the saying was being 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 Nov 19, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of price 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 judge who ascribed another version of the saying to Einstein: [15] 1991 July 4, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business past Don Williamson, Quote Folio A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)
The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein'due south 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 name was misspelled as "Erhart": [sixteen] 2000 July 30, The Indianapolis Star, Get a program to overcome trouble spots past Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Page J3, Column 1, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical beliefs and expecting a different result.' If we repeatedly accept difficulties in an area of life, doesn't it brand sense that our behaviors crusade the problems?
In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted two characters conversing; the first mentioned the now well-known definition of insanity, and the 2d 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, Appointment on website: March 18, 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 information technology convinced anyone to alter their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on electric current prove the maxim 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 adage. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years after his expiry and is unsupported.
Image Notes: Ii arrows pointing at ane another from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait of Albert Einstein circa 1921 by Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Images accept been retouched, cropped and resized.
(Neat 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 cheers to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous commendation. Too, thank you to the valuable inquiry 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 October 11, 1981 commendation was added to the article.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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