Who sais That?

Paul Johnstone
I spoke a business coach at a Refer-On breakfast recently and asked him what his favourite quote was. He responded that he had two favourite quotes. However I will focus on one quote to demonstrate a point.


The coach said that the quote was often attributed to Einstein, but he had seen variations of the quote. He wanted to find out definitively who the quote was by. The quote is “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result.” I did a quick search on the Internet and here is what I found:


“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result” Albert Einstein


“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result” Benjamin Franklin


Now we have a dilemma because these are the same quote. I went to the library and asked them to check their quotations reference books to see who the quote was attributed to. Either version of the quote wasn’t in any of the reference books that they checked.


Doing some additional research, I found “The New Quotable Einstein” by Alice Calaprice, senior editor at Princeton University Press. I went through the entire book manually because there was no way to do it electronically, and I couldn’t find the quote.


Should I assume that the quote must be by Benjamin Franklin? Not likely! I have not been able to find a definitive answer so whenever I use the quote I say popularly attributed to Einstein and Franklin.


The point I wanted to illustrate to you is that because several people are citing information and attributing it to a source, doesn’t mean that the information is accurate. It simply means that they are all citing from the one source so you have to exercise some due diligence.


I was so exasperated I goggled it and guess what Einstein and Franklin came up time after time. This looks like the perfect example of someone wants to believe one particular person said something, no matter what the facts are.

Moral, check your facts first and don’t go on believing everthing you read. And check your facts if you are presenting at a networking event.


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