Why Do People Constantly Say the Same Thing Over and Over Again
Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Bearding? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brown? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?
Dear Quote Investigator: It's foolish to echo ineffective actions. One popular formulation presents this point harshly:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over once again and expecting a different result.
These words are unremarkably credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein. What practise you think?
Quote Investigator: In that location is no substantive prove that Einstein wrote or spoke the argument to a higher place. It is listed within a section called "Misattributed to Einstein" in the comprehensive reference "The Ultimate Quotable Einstein" from Princeton University Printing. [i] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Misattributed to Einstein, Quote Page 474, Princeton University Printing, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in Oct 1981 inside a Knoxville, Tennessee paper article describing a meeting of Al-Betimes, an arrangement 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 Bearding. The newspaper began with these 2 steps: [2] 1981 October 11, The Knoxville News-Sentinel 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 one: Nosotros admitted nosotros were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
One of the attendees at the coming together hesitated to accept the accurateness of second step. Accent 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 same affair over and over again and expecting different results."
The second earliest potent match known to QI appeared in a pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organization in Nov 1981: [iii] 1981, Narcotics Bearding Pamphlet, (Bones Text Approval Grade, Unpublished Literary Work), Chapter Four: How It Works, Step Two, Folio 11, Printed November 1981, Copyright 1981, W.Southward.C.-Literature … Go along reading
The price may seem higher for the aficionado who prostitutes for a fix than it is for the addict who just lies to a doctor, just ultimately both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different 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 notice. The website was subsequently reorganized, but the document remains available via the Internet Annal Wayback Auto database.
Beneath are additional selected citations in chronological social club.
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 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 example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck'southward "La Princesse Maleine": [4] 1895 Copyright, Degeneration by Max Nordau (Max Simon Nordau) (Translated from the Second Edition of the German 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 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 picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those about extolled by Maeterlinck'southward admirers.
When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau'due south opus he turned the criticism of repetition back upon the writer and suggested that Nordau might diagnose himself as mentally unsound: [5] 1895 July 27, Liberty, Volume 11, Number 6, A Degenerate's View of Nordau by Bernard Shaw, Quote Page 2, Column 1, Published by Benj. R Tucker, New York. (Reprint in 1970 by Greenwood Reprint … Continue reading
I take read Max Nordau'southward "Degeneration" at your request,—two hundred and 60 thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and over again. That, as you know, is the mode to drive a matter into the mind of the world, though Nordau considers information technology a symptom of insane "obsession" on the part of writers who do not share his ain opinions. His message to the world 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 by overwork.
The 1955 book "The Psychology of Personal Constructs" by George A. Kelly included a definition that corresponded to the maxim nether investigation although it employed a different vocabulary: [6] 1955, The Psychology of Personal Constructs by George A. Kelly, Book 2: Clinical Diagnosis and Psychotherapy, Quote Folio 831, Published by Westward. W. Norton & Company, New York. (Verified on paper)
From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder equally any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation. This is an unusual definition, as psychological thinking ordinarily goes.
In Oct 1981 an educator and counselor on family relationships delivered a speech communication containing a thematically related adage: [7] 1981 October 24, The Milwaukee Watch, Search For Quality Called Primal To Life by Tom Ahern, Quote Page five, Column 5, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Google News Annal)
"If you ever do what you've always done, you ever get what you've always gotten." That was the advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday's opening of the 7th annual Woman to Woman conference.
More information nigh the quotation above is bachelor here.
In Oct 1981 the saying was spoken by an attendee of an Al-Anon coming together every bit noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same matter over and over again and expecting dissimilar results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet from Narcotics Anonymous contained a shut match as noted previously:
Insanity is repeating the aforementioned mistakes and expecting different results.
The 1983 novel "Sudden Decease" past Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a character within the book: [8] 1983, Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brownish, Chapter 4, Quote Page 68, Published by Bantam Books, New York. (Verified with scans)
The trouble with Susan was that she fabricated the same mistakes repeatedly. She'd fall in dearest with a adult female and eat her. Susan thought that her mere presence was plenty. What more than was there to give? When she tired, normally after a year or and then, she'd find another woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, simply expecting different results."
A June 1983 book review of "Sudden Decease" in "The Blaring-Ledger" of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the proverb: [9] 1983 June 19, The Clarion-Ledger, "Sudden Death" a complex metaphor past Stephen L. Silberman, (Book review of "Sudden Death" by Rita Mae Brown), Quote Page 7H, Column 2, … Continue reading
Women'southward lawn tennis gets a thorough dissecting in this story. Jane Fulton is the disquisitional sports writer who contends "Modern professional sports rewards players for role instead of grapheme. Responsibleness is normally divers as doing a task better than anyone else." She looks askance at professional person 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 same thing over and over and over again, but expecting unlike results."
Too in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, offered a counterpoint perspective in his work "Worstward Ho": [x] 1983, Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett, Quote Page seven, Grove Press Inc., New York. (Verified with scans)
All of old. Nothing else ever. Always tried. Always failed. No matter. Try once again. Fail again. Fail better.
In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the tv set comedy series "Night Court" shared the definition during a newspaper interview: [11] 1986 January 5, The Sydney Morning time Herald, Television with Jacqueline Lee Lewes: From drugs, drink 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'southward the repetition of the same action expecting different results. Similar jumping out of a 40-storey building, breaking every os, spending six months in hospital, going dorsum to the same edifice, up to the 39th floor, jumping and expecting information technology to be different. Information technology is NEVER different."
In April 1986 an opinion slice past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in "The Dallas Morning News" of Texas included the saying: [12] 1986 April 25, The Dallas Morn News, Leadership Beyond Ethnicity Should Be Goal of Dallasites past Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr., Dallas, Texas. (NewsBank Access World News)
I once heard insanity defined as a process by which an individual or a system does something over and over again in the same way while yet expecting different results. To go on to evaluate and address problems in our community strictly along ethnic, instead of human being, considerations is insane if but for one reason: It will lead to the polarization that is the standard of paranoid societies.
The 1988 book "Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Cocky-Indulgent Earth" included an instance: [13] 1988 Copyright, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World: Seven Edifice Blocks for Developing Capable Young People by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen, Quote Folio 174, Published past … Continue reading
Flexibility is the ability to bend when we detect ourselves in unworkable positions. A universal characteristic of insanity is inflexibly doing the same matter over and over while hoping for different results. Flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, by contrast, is a hallmark of mental health.
By 1990 the saying was being attributed to Einstein. For instance, the "Austin American-Statesman" of Austin, Texas published the following remark made by Travis Canton District Chaser Ronnie Earle: [14] 1990 November xix, Austin American-Statesman, Section: News, Prison Puzzle – Threat of cost explosion poses difficult choices past Mike Ward, Quote Page A1, Austin, Texas. (NewsBank Admission World … Continue reading
Einstein one time 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, Department: Editorial, Getting Out of the Freedom Business organization by 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 name was misspelled every bit "Erhart": [xvi] 2000 July xxx, The Indianapolis Star, Get a plan to overcome problem spots by Tim O'Brien (Knight Ridder News Service), Quote Page J3, Column 1, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Newspapers_com)
Werner Erhart described insanity as 'repeating identical behavior and expecting a unlike result.' If we repeatedly accept difficulties in an expanse of life, doesn't information technology make sense that our behaviors cause the problems?
In 2022 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 title: Insanity, Comic author: Randall Munroe, Engagement 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 it convinced anyone to change their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on electric current evidence 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 take explored the provenance of this adage. The linkage to Albert Einstein occurred many years after his decease and is unsupported.
Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at one some other from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait of Albert Einstein circa 1921 past Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Images accept been retouched, cropped and resized.
(Great 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 codify this question and perform this exploration. Special thank you to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous commendation. Too, thanks to the valuable inquiry conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thank you to Bill Mullins who located the of import October 11, 1981 citation.)
Update History: On July 31, 2022 the Oct 11, 1981 citation was added to the article.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/
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