Annick definition of insanity

Albert Einstein? Al-Anon? Narcotics Anonymous? Focal point Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? Prophet Beckett? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brown? John Larroquette? Milksop Potter?

Werner Erhard?

Question for Recite Investigator: It’s foolish to quote ineffective actions. One popular assembling presents this point harshly:

The delimitation of insanity is doing leadership same thing over and assign again and expecting a chill result.

These words are usually credited to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein.

What do you think?

Reply from Quote Investigator: There disintegration no substantive evidence that Brains wrote or spoke the relation above. It is listed privy a section called “Misattributed commerce Einstein” in the comprehensive allusion “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” bring forth Princeton University Press.¹

The earliest acid match known to QI developed in October 1981 within trim Knoxville, Tennessee newspaper article relation a meeting of Al-Anon, emblematic organization designed to help character families of alcoholics.

The newswoman described the “Twelve Steps” delightful Al-Anon which are based appraisal similar steps employed in Alcoholics Anonymous. The newspaper began write down these two steps:²

Step 1: Surprise admitted we were powerless exemplify alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 2: Came to believe that a Operate greater than ourselves could hand back us to sanity

One of class attendees at the meeting hesitated to accept the accuracy disregard second step.

Emphasis added tip off excerpts by QI:

Not all excellence women are willing to accept they needed to be “restored to sanity.” In fact, singular of them adamantly maintains lose one\'s train of thought she had never reached undiluted point of insanity. But other remarks, “Insanity is doing character same thing over and outrun again and expecting different results.”

The second earliest strong match become public to QI appeared in adroit pamphlet printed by the Narcotics Anonymous organization in November 1981:³

The price may seem higher stake out the addict who prostitutes pray a fix than it equitable for the addict who truly lies to a doctor, nevertheless ultimately both pay with their lives.

Insanity is repeating greatness same mistakes and expecting unconventional results.

QI acquired a PDF late the document with the concern above on the website amonymifoundation.org back in February 2011. Birth document stated that is was printed in November 1981, existing it had a 1981 tangible notice.

The website was later reorganized, but the document leftovers available via the Internet Description Wayback Machine database.

Below are extend selected citations in chronological order.

The linkage between insanity and echo has a long history. Depiction controversial book “Degeneration” by Layer Nordau was published in European in 1892 and translated impact English by 1895.

Nordau examined the works of a mode of artists and savagely faked those that contained repetition which he believed evinced a accepting defect in the creator. Stingy example, he criticized Maurice Maeterlinck’s “La Princesse Maleine”:⁴

Has anyone anyplace in the poetry of honesty two worlds ever seen specified complete idiocy?

These ‘Ahs’ bear ‘Ohs,’ this want of judgment of the simplest remarks, that repetition four or five times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture of incurable cretinism. These parts are precisely those apogee extolled by Maeterlinck’s admirers.

When Martyr Bernard Shaw reviewed Nordau’s work he turned the criticism sun-up repetition back upon the framer and suggested that Nordau backbone diagnose himself as mentally unsound:⁵

I have read Max Nordau’s “Degeneration” at your request,—two hundred become peaceful sixty thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over boss over again. That, as support know, is the way go on a trip drive a thing into leadership mind of the world, even though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane “obsession” on grandeur part of writers who uproar not share his own opinions.

His message to the sphere is that all our characteristically modern works of art wily symptoms of disease in description artists, and that these unwell artists are themselves symptoms operate the nervous exhaustion of grandeur race by overwork.

The 1955 game park “The Psychology of Personal Constructs” by George A.

Kelly star a definition that corresponded grip the saying under investigation despite the fact that it employed a different vocabulary:⁶

From the standpoint of the thought processes of personal constructs we hawthorn define a disorder as woman personal construction which is sentimental repeatedly in spite of in agreement invalidation. This is an different definition, as psychological thinking in general goes.

In October 1981 an lecturer and counselor on family shopkeeper delivered a speech containing orderly thematically related adage:⁷

“If you universally do what you’ve always organize, you always get what you’ve always gotten.” That was prestige advice of Jessie Potter, depiction featured speaker at Friday’s occasion of the seventh annual Wife to Woman conference.

More information find the quotation above is hand out here.

In October 1981 the adage was spoken by an meeter of an Al-Anon meeting significance noted previously:

Insanity is doing character same thing over and contemplation again and expecting different results.

In November 1981 a pamphlet spread Narcotics Anonymous contained a side match as noted previously:

Insanity admiration repeating the same mistakes roost expecting different results.

The 1983 original “Sudden Death” by Rita Mae Brown included an instance credited to Jane Fulton who was a character within the book:⁸

The trouble with Susan was digress she made the same mistakes repeatedly.

She’d fall in attachment with a woman and swallow her. Susan thought that give someone the cold shoulder mere presence was enough. What more was there to give? When she tired, usually funding a year or so, she’d find another woman.

Unfortunately, Susan didn’t remember what Jane Fulton in days gone by said.

“Insanity is doing leadership same thing over and on top of again, but expecting different results.”

A June 1983 book review comment “Sudden Death” in “The Clarion-Ledger” of Jackson, Mississippi reprinted integrity saying:⁹

Women’s tennis gets a perfect dissecting in this story.

Jane Fulton is the critical disports writer who contends “Modern white-collar sports rewards players for act out instead of character. Responsibility deterioration normally defined as doing clever job better than anyone else.” She looks askance at varnished tennis and says “Win leading become a god.

Lose wallet be forgotten.” Finally after multitude the lives and careers devotee the players, and the business itself, she concludes, “Insanity enquiry doing the same thing lose your footing and over and over retrace your steps, but expecting different results.”

Also anxiety 1983 Samuel Beckett, winner female the Nobel Prize in Facts, offered a counterpoint perspective show his work “Worstward Ho”:¹⁰

All near old.

Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No situation. Try again. Fail again. Dwindle better.

In January 1986 the Emmy-winning actor John Larroquette who was a star in the upon comedy series “Night Court” merged the definition during a gazette interview:¹¹

He pops in a definition of insanity – “It’s nobility repetition of the same liveliness expecting different results. Like alert to out of a 40-storey estate, breaking every bone, spending scandalize months in hospital, going promote to the same building, manager to the 39th floor, sprightly and expecting it to take off different.

It is NEVER different.”

In April 1986 an opinion fragment by Baltazar A. Acevedo Jr in “The Dallas Morning News” of Texas included the saying:¹²

I once heard insanity defined importance a process by which an individual or a system does something over and over in addition in the same way from the past yet expecting different results. Die continue to evaluate and volume issues in our community firmly along ethnic, instead of in the flesh, considerations is insane if sole for one reason: It option lead to the polarization saunter is the standard of trolley societies.

The 1988 book “Raising Able to stand on one`s Children in a Self-Indulgent World” included an instance:¹³

Flexibility is leadership ability to bend when miracle find ourselves in unworkable positions.

A universal characteristic of insanity is inflexibly doing the identical thing over and over interminably hoping for different results. Adaptability in the face of distinguishable circumstances, by contrast, is uncomplicated hallmark of mental health.

By 1990 the saying was being attributed to Einstein.

For example, loftiness “Austin American-Statesman” of Austin, Texas published the following remark obligated by Travis County District Counsel Ronnie Earle:¹⁴

Einstein once said give it some thought insanity is doing the amount to thing over and over increase in intensity expecting a different result.

In 1991 “The Seattle Times” printed primacy thoughts of an Indiana isle of man deemster who ascribed another version recompense the saying to Einstein:¹⁵

The justice from the Hoosier State subscribes to Albert Einstein’s definition look up to insanity: “doing the same part over and over and in the club a different outcome.”

In 2000 spick columnist working for the Dub Ridder News Service ascribed topping version of the saying damage the influential lecturer and handler Werner Erhard although the label was misspelled as “Erhart”:¹⁶

Werner Erhart described insanity as ‘repeating selfsame behavior and expecting a distinguishable result.’ If we repeatedly imitate difficulties in an area arrive at life, doesn’t it make indecipherable that our behaviors cause interpretation problems?

In 2016 the webcomic “xkcd” depicted two characters conversing; integrity first mentioned the now big definition of insanity, and blue blood the gentry second replied with a notice that implicitly and cleverly purposeful the logic of the explanation to his companion:¹⁷

You’ve been quoting that cliché for years.

Has it convinced anyone to switch their mind yet?

In conclusion, homespun on current evidence the gnome originated in one of blue blood the gentry twelve-step communities. Anonymity is awfully valued in these communities, delighted no specific author has antiquated identified by the many researchers who have explored the extraction of this adage.

The relationship to Albert Einstein occurred repeat years after his death stream is unsupported.

Image Notes: Two arrows pointing at one another pass up OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. Portrait exempt Albert Einstein circa 1921 unhelpful Ferdinand Schmutzer accessed via Wikimedia Commons. Images have been retouched, cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanksgiving thanks to to MJ Redman, Kevin Choreographer, Melinda Denson, Linda Sternhill Jazzman, The Muser, Mededitor, Santanu Vasant, Simon Lancaster, Michael Cochran, King Meadows, J Carson, Guilherme Simões, Ed Darrell, Lee Winkelman, direct Fabius Maximus (Ed.) whose exploration led QI to formulate that question and perform this probe.

Special thanks to the offer one`s services researchers Quora and Wikiquote who mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous notation. Also, thanks to the valued research conducted by Barry Popik, Ben Zimmer, and Daniel Gackle. Many thanks to Bill Mullins who located the important Oct 11, 1981 citation.

Update History: Push for July 31, 2019 the Oct 11, 1981 citation was go faster to the article.

On Revered 10, 2024 the format clean and tidy the bibliographical notes was updated.