“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

—  Robert T. Kiyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

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Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Robert T. Kiyosaki 151
American finance author , investor 1947

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Benjamin Franklin photo

“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

Albert Einstein photo

“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.

“Do you know the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

"Wrong. That's the definition of determination.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Through the Zombie Glass

Anthony Kiedis photo

“One of the better definitions of insanity - doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting the result to be different.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

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

“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 (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Source: Sudden Death

Allen West (politician) photo

“The truth is that it is a culture of dependency as promulgated by the race-baiters and new plantation overseers of the inner city that has created what we’re seeing play out in Baltimore. There is where the blame lies, but there are very few who are willing to admit just that. Remember what ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith said? He wished that for one voting cycle, the black community would vote Republican. Heck, they could do no worse — and look, even the people of the State of Maryland decided to try something different and elected a Republican governor. Who, when finally asked, immediately activated the National Guard to quell the violence and chaos which the Democrat Mayor of Baltimore failed to comprehend, and control. Perhaps what we’re witnessing in Baltimore is the pure definition of insanity — continuing to do the same thing and expect different results.”

Allen West (politician) (1961) American politician; retired United States Army officer

2010s, Dirty little secret no one wants to admit about Baltimore (2015)

Richard Whately photo

“Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.”

Richard Whately (1787–1863) English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian

Introduction, p. 1
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

Saul Bellow photo

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

If women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education. — Plato, The Republic, Book V, trans. Benjamin Jowett, third edition, Oxford University Press, 1892 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0345#hd_lf131.3.head.017
Misattributed
Variant: So if we are going to use men and women for the same purposes, they must be taught the same things. The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee [Penguin Classics, 2003, ISBN 0-140-449140-0], p. 161
Variant: Then if we are to use the women for the same things as the men, we must teach them the same things. The Republic, trans. W. H. D. Rouse [Signet Classic, 1999, ISBN 0-451-52745-3], p. 249

Warren Buffett photo

“You know… you keep doing the same things and you keep getting the same result over and over again.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

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