Do Something Over Again Same Result

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's foolish to echo ineffective actions. One pop formulation presents this bespeak harshly:

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

These words are normally credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What do you lot call up?

Quote Investigator: There is no noun evidence that Einstein wrote or spoke the statement above. It is listed within a department called "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton Academy Press. ^[1] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited past Alice Calaprice, Section: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Page 474, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on newspaper)

The primeval potent lucifer known to QI appeared in Oct 1981 within a Knoxville, Tennessee paper commodity describing a meeting of Al-Anon, an organization designed to assistance the families of alcoholics. The journalist described the "Twelve Steps" of Al-Betimes which are based on similar steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The newspaper began with these 2 steps: ^[2] 1981 October eleven, The Knoxville News-Picket Al-Betimes Helps Family, Friends to Orderly Lives by Betsy Pickle (Living Today Staff Writer), Quote Page F17, Column 2, Knoxville, Tennessee. (GenealogyBank)

Footstep one: Nosotros admitted nosotros were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Came to believe that a Ability greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

One of the attendees at the meeting hesitated to take the accuracy of 2d step. Emphasis added to excerpts past QI:

Non 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 another remarks, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and once again and expecting unlike results."

The 2nd earliest potent match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organisation in November 1981: ^[iii] 1981, Narcotics Anonymous Pamphlet, (Basic Text Approval Class, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Footstep Two, Page xi, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, Due west.South.C.-Literature … Continue reading

The price may seem higher for the aficionado who prostitutes for a set than it is for the aficionado who merely lies to a physician, only 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 dorsum in Feb 2011. The document stated that is was printed in November 1981, and information technology had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, just the certificate remains bachelor via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine database.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological guild.
The linkage between insanity and repetition has a long history. The controversial volume "Degeneration" by 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 example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck'south "La Princesse Maleine": ^[4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration by Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the 2nd Edition of the German Work), Quote Page 238, D. Appleton and Company. (Google Books Total View) link

Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds always seen such consummate idiocy? These 'Ahs' and 'Ohs,' this desire of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or five times of the aforementioned imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical film of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those most extolled past Maeterlinck's admirers.

When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau'southward 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, Book 11, Number 6, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column 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 sixty thousand mortal words, saying the aforementioned affair over and over once again. That, equally 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 not share his own opinions. His bulletin 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 burnout 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 nether investigation although it employed a different vocabulary: ^[6] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Volume 2: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Page 831, Published past Westward. W. Norton & Visitor, New York. (Verified on paper)

From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder every bit any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consequent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, as psychological thinking ordinarily goes.

In October 1981 an educator and counselor on family relationships delivered a speech containing a thematically related aphorism: ^[7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Search For Quality Chosen Fundamental To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Page five, Column v, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Archive)

"If you always exercise what you've always done, you e'er 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 Adult female conference.

More information about the quotation to a higher place is available here.

In Oct 1981 the saying was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Betimes meeting 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 contained a close match every bit noted previously:

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

The 1983 novel "Sudden Death" past Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a graphic symbol within the book: ^[viii] 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 aforementioned mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in dearest with a woman and consume her. Susan idea that her mere presence was enough. What more was in that location to give? When she tired, usually after a year or so, she'd observe another woman.

Unfortunately, Susan didn't think what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the aforementioned affair over and over over again, but expecting unlike results."

A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Death" in "The Clarion-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying: ^[9] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Decease" a complex metaphor by Stephen 50. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Decease" past Rita Mae Brown), Quote Page 7H, Cavalcade 2, … Proceed reading

Women'southward lawn tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the critical sports writer who contends "Modernistic professional sports rewards players for function instead of grapheme. Responsibleness is normally defined as doing a job amend than anyone else." She looks askance at professional person tennis and says "Win and become 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 once again, just expecting different results."

As well 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. Always tried. Ever failed. No matter. Endeavor again. Fail over again. Fail improve.

In Jan 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the television set comedy series "Nighttime Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: ^[11] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Forenoon Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink to… Night Courtroom: '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 dissimilar results. Like jumping out of a twoscore-storey building, breaking every bone, spending half dozen months in hospital, going back to the aforementioned building, upwards to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting it to be different. Information technology is NEVER unlike."

In April 1986 an opinion piece past 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 World News)

I once heard insanity defined every bit a process by which an individual or a system does something over and over once again in the same manner while yet expecting different results. To continue to evaluate and address issues in our customs strictly along indigenous, instead of human, considerations is insane if just for one reason: Information technology will lead to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.

The 1988 volume "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World" included an instance: ^[xiii] 1988 Copyright, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent Earth: Vii Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Page 174, Published by … Go along reading

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

Past 1990 the saying was existence attributed to Einstein. For example, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark fabricated by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle: ^[14] 1990 November 19, 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 … Keep 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 approximate who ascribed some other version of the saying to Einstein: ^[15] 1991 July 4, The Seattle Times, Section: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Concern past Don Williamson, Quote Page A8, Seattle, Washington. (NewsBank Access World News)

The jurist from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "doing the aforementioned matter 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": ^[16] 2000 July xxx, The Indianapolis Star, Get a plan 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 every bit '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 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, Date on website: March 18, 2016, Website description: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (Accessed xkcd.com … Keep reading

You lot've been quoting that platitude for years. Has information technology convinced anyone to change their mind yet?

In conclusion, based on electric current evidence the proverb originated in one of the twelve-pace 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 decease 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 Eatables. Images take 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 formulate this question and perform this exploration. Special thanks to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous citation. Also, thank you to the valuable inquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thanks to Pecker Mullins who located the important October xi, 1981 citation.)

Update History: On July 31, 2019 the October eleven, 1981 commendation was added to the article.

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

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