In the 1955 book “The Psychology of Personal Constructs,” author George A.That, as you know, is the way to drive a thing into the mind of the world, though Nordau considers it a symptom of insane ‘obsession’ on the part of writers who do not share his own opinions.” In reviewing Nordau’s work, the writer George Bernard Shaw, in 1895, echoed the sentiment : “I have read Max Nordau’s ‘Degeneration’ at your request,-two hundred and sixty thousand mortal words, saying the same thing over and over again.In the 1890s book “Degeneration” (first published in German in 1892, translated to English in 1895), writer Max Nordau criticized the use of repetition in the arts, specifically in regards to “La Princess Maleine” by Maurice Maeterlinck: “Has anyone anywhere in the poetry of the two worlds ever seen such complete idiocy? These ‘Ahs’ and ‘Ohs,’ this want of comprehension of the simplest remarks, this repetition four or five times of the same imbecile expressions, gives the truest conceivable clinical picture of incurable cretinism.”.Whether it’s an original quote is hard to say, because there’s precedent for it being an extrapolation of similar sentiments passed down over time: Research indicates that the saying was included as far back as November 1981, when an unpublished, unapproved draft contained the same paragraph verbatim, according to documents first published by the website and captured by the internet archive site The Wayback Machine. Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” The roots of a definition of insanity Ultimately both pay for their disease with their lives. The price may seem higher for the addict who prostitutes for a fix than it is for the addict who merely lies to a doctor. This is at least part of the insanity of addiction. One way or another we went out and bought our destruction on the time payment plan! All of us, from the junkie snatching purses to the sweet little old lady hitting two or three doctors for legal prescriptions, have one thing in common: we seek our destruction a bat at a time, a few pills at a time, or a bottle at a time until we die. “We have a disease: progressive, incurable and fatal. In the Basic Text, which was approved in 1982 and first published in 1983, it’s presented almost word for word in the third paragraph of Step Two, found in Chapter Four (“How It Works”): Call it a cliché, an old saw, a euphemism or a witticism, it’s still applicable in describing addiction and alcoholism: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”Īround the rooms of recovery, it’s most commonly heard in the 12 Step program Narcotics Anonymous.
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