Geet Up Again Over and Over
Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brownish? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?
Beloved Quote Investigator: It's foolish to repeat ineffective deportment. Ane popular formulation presents this indicate harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different event.
These words are ordinarily credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What practice you retrieve?
Quote Investigator: There is no noun evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the argument above. It is listed inside a department chosen "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton Academy Printing. [one] 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 October 1981 within a Knoxville, Tennessee paper commodity describing a coming together of Al-Anon, an organization designed to help the families of alcoholics. The announcer described the "Twelve Steps" of Al-Betimes which are based on similar steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The paper began with these two steps: [two] 1981 Oct 11, The Knoxville News-Sentry Al-Anon Helps Family unit, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Page F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over booze – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore united states to sanity
1 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. But another remarks, "Insanity is doing the aforementioned matter over and again and expecting different results."
The second earliest strong match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organization in November 1981: [three] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Basic Text Approval Grade, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter 4: How It Works, Step Two, Page xi, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, W.Southward.C.-Literature … Proceed reading
The price may seem college for the aficionado who prostitutes for a fix than information technology is for the addict who merely 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 document stated that is was printed in November 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, but the certificate remains available via the Internet Archive Wayback Motorcar database.
Beneath are boosted 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 German in 1892 and translated into English past 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 instance, 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 High german 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 want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or five times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest believable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those about extolled past Maeterlinck's admirers.
When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau'south 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 xi, Number 6, A Degenerate'southward View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column i, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Keep reading
I accept read Max Nordau's "Degeneration" at your asking,—two hundred and 60 thousand mortal words, proverb the same thing over and over again. That, as y'all 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 role of writers who exercise not 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 exhaustion of the race by 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: [vi] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume 2: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published by W. West. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define 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 counselor on family relationships delivered a voice communication containing a thematically related adage: [7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Called Key To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Folio five, Column 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)
"If you always practice what you've always done, you lot always go what you've e'er gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Fri's opening of the seventh annual Woman to Woman briefing.
More information about the quotation higher up is available here.
In October 1981 the maxim was spoken past an attendee of an Al-Anon meeting equally noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and again and expecting unlike results.
In Nov 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous contained a close friction match equally noted previously:
Insanity is repeating the aforementioned mistakes and expecting different results.
The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Chocolate-brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a graphic symbol inside the book: [8] 1983, Sudden Decease past 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 autumn in love with a woman and consume her. Susan idea that her mere presence was enough. What more than was there to give? When she tired, usually subsequently a year or so, she'd find some other adult female.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the aforementioned thing over and over over again, only expecting unlike results."
A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Decease" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying: [9] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Death" a complex metaphor by Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown), Quote Page 7H, Column 2, … Continue reading
Women's tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the critical sports writer who contends "Modern professional sports rewards players for function instead of grapheme. Responsibility is commonly divers as 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 after 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, simply expecting unlike results."
Besides 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 always. E'er tried. Ever failed. No matter. Effort over again. Fail again. Fail better.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the telly comedy series "Nighttime Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [11] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Morning time Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, potable to… Night Court: 'Confessions of an Emmy Star, Quote Page 31, Column three, Sydney, New … Proceed reading
He pops in a definition of insanity – "It's the repetition of the aforementioned action expecting dissimilar results. Like jumping out of a 40-storey building, breaking every bone, spending six months in hospital, going dorsum to the same building, up to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting it to be different. It is NEVER unlike."
In April 1986 an opinion piece by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Forenoon News" of Texas included the saying: [12] 1986 April 25, The Dallas Morning 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 individual or a system does something over and over again in the aforementioned way while yet expecting different results. To go on to evaluate and address bug in our community strictly forth indigenous, instead of homo, considerations is insane if just for one reason: It will pb 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 World: Vii Building Blocks for Developing Capable Immature People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Page 174, Published by … Continue reading
Flexibility is the ability to bend when we find 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 irresolute circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental wellness.
By 1990 the maxim was being attributed to Einstein. For example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark fabricated past Travis County District Chaser Ronnie Earle: [fourteen] 1990 November 19, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison house Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices by Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Access Globe … Proceed reading
Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different effect.
In 1991 "The Seattle Times" printed the thoughts of an Indiana judge who ascribed some other version of the saying to Einstein: [15] 1991 July four, The Seattle Times, Department: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business by Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Admission World News)
The jurist from the Hoosier Land subscribes to Albert Einstein'due south definition of insanity: "doing the same thing 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 every bit "Erhart": [sixteen] 2000 July thirty, The Indianapolis Star, Get a plan to overcome trouble spots past Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Folio J3, Column 1, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical beliefs and expecting a different effect.' If we repeatedly accept difficulties in an area of life, doesn't information technology make sense that our behaviors cause the problems?
In 2016 the webcomic "xkcd" depicted two characters conversing; the offset mentioned the now well-known definition of insanity, and the 2nd 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 eighteen, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (Accessed xkcd.com … Proceed reading
You lot've been quoting that cliché for years. Has it convinced anyone to change their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on electric current evidence the maxim originated in one of the twelve-pace communities. Anonymity is profoundly 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 afterwards his death and is unsupported.
Image 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 accept been retouched, cropped and resized.
(Bang-up 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 inquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thanks to Bill Mullins who located the important October eleven, 1981 citation.)
Update History: On July 31, 2019 the Oct 11, 1981 citation was added to the article.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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