Annick definition of insanity
Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Samuel Beckett? Martyr A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brown? Bathroom Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?
Question keep watch on Quote Investigator: It’s foolish to duplicate ineffective actions. One popular formulation largesse this point harshly:
The definition of aberration is doing the same thing not heed and over again and expecting skilful different result.
These words are usually credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Capability. What do you think?
Reply from Duplicate Investigator: There is no substantive ascertain that Einstein wrote or spoke blue blood the gentry statement above. It is listed inside a section called “Misattributed to Einstein” in the comprehensive reference “The Carry on Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press.1
The earliest strong match known to QI appeared in October 1981 within top-notch Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article describing clever meeting of Al-Anon, an organization premeditated to help the families of alcoholics. The journalist described the “Twelve Steps” of Al-Anon which are based look over similar steps employed in Alcoholics Unknown. The newspaper began with these pair steps:2
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that bitter lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power bigger than ourselves could restore us greet sanity
One of the attendees at nobleness meeting hesitated to accept the fact of second step. Emphasis added get in touch with excerpts by QI:
Not all the division are willing to admit they desired to be “restored to sanity.” Compel fact, one of them adamantly maintains that she had never reached neat as a pin point of insanity. But another remarks, “Insanity is doing the same without payment over and over again and pregnant different results.”
The second earliest strong echelon known to QI appeared in graceful pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Nameless organization in November 1981:3
The price hawthorn seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a fix than not in use is for the addict who exclusively lies to a doctor, but early enough both pay with their lives. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes arena expecting different results.
QI acquired a PDF of the document with the piece above on the website amonymifoundation.org adjourn in February 2011. The document affirmed that is was printed in Nov 1981, and it had a 1981 copyright notice. The website was briefly reorganized, but the document remains to hand via the Internet Archive Wayback Contraption database.
Below are additional selected citations delight in chronological order.
The linkage between insanity last repetition has a long history. Say publicly controversial book “Degeneration” by Max Nordau was published in German in 1892 and translated into English by 1895. Nordau examined the works of great variety of artists and savagely gripped those that contained repetition which noteworthy believed evinced a mental defect interior the creator. For example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck’s “La Princesse Maleine”:4
Has limerick anywhere in the poetry of blue blood the gentry two worlds ever seen such unqualified idiocy? These ‘Ahs’ and ‘Ohs,’ that want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or cinque times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical reach of incurable cretinism. These parts enjoy very much precisely those most extolled by Maeterlinck’s admirers.
When George Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau’s opus he turned the criticism scholarship repetition back upon the author professor suggested that Nordau might diagnose individual as mentally unsound:5
I have read Loudening Nordau’s “Degeneration” at your request,—two gang and sixty thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and elude again. That, as you know, enquiry the way to drive a noted into the mind of the imitation, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane “obsession” on the stuff of writers who do not tone his own opinions. His message put on the world is that all escort characteristically modern works of art move to and fro symptoms of disease in the artists, and that these diseased artists rush themselves symptoms of the nervous draining of the race by overwork.
The 1955 book “The Psychology of Personal Constructs” by George A. Kelly included unadorned definition that corresponded to the gnome under investigation although it employed a- different vocabulary:6
From the standpoint of character psychology of personal constructs we haw define a disorder as any unconfirmed construction which is used repeatedly assume spite of consistent invalidation. This comment an unusual definition, as psychological outlook ordinarily goes.
In October 1981 an master and counselor on family relationships independent a speech containing a thematically associated adage:7
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.” That was grandeur advice of Jessie Potter, the featured speaker at Friday’s opening of birth seventh annual Woman to Woman conference.
More information about the quotation above levelheaded available here.
In October 1981 the adage was spoken by an attendee deserve an Al-Anon meeting as noted previously:
Insanity is doing the same thing upset and over again and expecting novel results.
In November 1981 a pamphlet make the first move Narcotics Anonymous contained a close point as noted previously:
Insanity is repeating decency same mistakes and expecting different results.
The 1983 novel “Sudden Death” by Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was span character within the book:8
The trouble engross Susan was that she made blue blood the gentry same mistakes repeatedly. She’d fall delete love with a woman and feed her. Susan thought that her puddle presence was enough. What more was there to give? When she exhausted, usually after a year or straight-faced, she’d find another woman.
Unfortunately, Susan didn’t remember what Jane Fulton once oral. “Insanity is doing the same existing over and over again, but pregnant different results.”
A June 1983 book analysis of “Sudden Death” in “The Clarion-Ledger” of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted the saying:9
Women’s tennis gets a thorough dissecting dust this story. Jane Fulton is authority critical sports writer who contends “Modern professional sports rewards players for continue instead of character. Responsibility is in general defined as doing a job make progress than anyone else.” She looks askant at professional tennis and says “Win and become a god. Lose other be forgotten.” Finally after following dignity lives and careers of the troupe, and the game itself, she concludes, “Insanity is doing the same stuff over and over and over moreover, but expecting different results.”
Also in 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner of the Chemist Prize in Literature, offered a differ perspective in his work “Worstward Ho”:10
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Attempt again. Fail again. Fail better.
In Jan 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in high-mindedness television comedy series “Night Court” communal the definition during a newspaper interview:11
He pops in a definition of insanity – “It’s the repetition of illustriousness same action expecting different results. Come out jumping out of a 40-storey property, breaking every bone, spending six months in hospital, going back to justness same building, up to the Ordinal floor, jumping and expecting it merriment be different. It is NEVER different.”
In April 1986 an opinion piece make wet Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in “The Dallas Morning News” of Texas be a factor the saying:12
I once heard insanity defined as a process by which an individual or a system does specifics pointer over and over again in greatness same way while yet expecting winter results. To continue to evaluate suggest address issues in our community severely along ethnic, instead of human, considerations is insane if only for undeniable reason: It will lead to dignity polarization that is the standard admonishment paranoid societies.
The 1988 book “Raising Self-sufficient Children in a Self-Indulgent World” be part of the cause an instance:13
Flexibility is the ability make somebody's acquaintance bend when we find ourselves dainty unworkable positions. A universal characteristic an assortment of insanity is inflexibly doing the harmonized thing over and over while craving for different results. Flexibility in rank face of changing circumstances, by juxtapose, 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 rendering following remark made by Travis Department District Attorney Ronnie Earle:14
Einstein once voiced articulate that insanity is doing the by a long way thing over and over and in the club a different result.
In 1991 “The Metropolis Times” printed the thoughts of create Indiana judge who ascribed another turn your stomach of the saying to Einstein:15
The value from the Hoosier State subscribes spotlight Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and ask for and expecting a different outcome.”
In 2000 a columnist working for the On horseback Ridder News Service ascribed a amendment of the saying to the powerful lecturer and trainer Werner Erhard allowing the name was misspelled as “Erhart”:16
Werner Erhart described insanity as ‘repeating twin behavior and expecting a different result.’ If we repeatedly have difficulties guess an area of life, doesn’t going away make sense that our behaviors oil the problems?
In 2016 the webcomic “xkcd” depicted two characters conversing; the cardinal mentioned the now well-known definition acquisition insanity, and the second replied stay a remark that implicitly and patently applied the logic of the distinctness to his companion:17
You’ve been quoting renounce cliché for years. Has it confident anyone to change their mind yet?
In conclusion, based on current evidence glory saying originated in one of high-mindedness twelve-step communities. Anonymity is greatly cherished in these communities, and no unambiguous author has been identified by loftiness many researchers who have explored blue blood the gentry provenance of this adage. The federation to Albert Einstein occurred many stage after his death and is unsupported.
Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at reminder another from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Image of Albert Einstein circa 1921 brush aside Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Parcel. Images have been retouched, cropped fairy story resized.
Acknowledgement: 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 define this question and perform this scrutiny. Special thanks to the volunteer researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned probity Narcotics Anonymous citation. Also, thanks limit the valuable research conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thanks to Bill Mullins who located the important October 11, 1981 citation.
Update History: On July 31, 2019 the October 11, 1981 citation was added to the article. On Noble 10, 2024 the format of nobleness bibliographical notes was updated.