The quote is one of those things where people nod knowingly every time they hear it. However, all it takes to break the spell is to say "yeah, but it isn't." Then most people will instantly see that you are correct . . . until the next time they hear it so that they can nod knowingly.
I did some research on everyone's favorite stupid saying:
Here's a psychologist taking down the quote, and I think, interestingly, revealing that he hears it on average several times a week.
And a Salon article proclaiming it "the most overused cliché of all time," and then giving a bunch of examples of it being used, saving the trouble of making such a list, which I was strongly considering.
Here is a breakdown of the history of the quote. The original wording found in print was from a Narcotics Anonymous book in 1981 -- which, by the way, is 26 years after Einstein died. Here is root of the madness:
Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.
Not only is it mind-blowing that the quote is from a 12-Step Program and first came into being in the Reagan era, but also note how much better the original formulation is. While there are loads of situations -- like sales, investing, or watering an un-sprouted seed -- where doing a lot of the same thing and expecting different results is part of the path to success, mistakes are not good to repeat. It appears that in order to make the quote sticky in public discourse, it had to be made significantly more vague and thus inaccurate.
The first time our modern, less accurate wording shows up in print comes from a novel by Rita Mae Brown published in 1984. And while her Wikipedia page is impressive, Einstein she is not.
Now you know that the most over-used cliché of all time is from a 12-step program. It seems that if we're every going to recover from it, the first step is to admit that we have a problem.
