“Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

— Rita Mae Brown

Source: Sudden Death

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again…" by Rita Mae Brown?

Rita Mae Brown 38

Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist 1944

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Brown did include this quote in her book Sudden Death (Bantam Books, New York, 1983), p. 68, but it appears she was just paraphrasing a quote that had already been written elsewhere. The earliest known appearance of a similar quote is the "approval version" of the Narcotics Anonymous "Basic Text" released in November 1981, which included the quote "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." A PDF scan of the 1981 approval version can be found here http://www.nauca.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1981-11-Basic-Text-Approval-Form-White.pdf, with the quote appearing on p. 11 (p. 25 of the PDF), at the end of the fourth paragraph (which begins "We have a disease; progressive, incurable and fatal"). More in this article https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/ on Quote Investigator website.
Misattributed

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Misattributed to various people, including Albert Einstein and Mark Twain. An early occurrence was used as a teaching reference at University of California, Irvine in social science lectures in the later 1960s. Also found in a 1981 text from Narcotics Anonymous.
Misattributed

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variously attributed also to Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. The earliest known occurrence, and probable origin, is from a 1981 text from Narcotics Anonymous: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." Cf. Rita Mae Brown#Misattributed.
Misattributed
Variant: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.