evidence: ‘Definition of Insanity’: Did Albert Einstein Really Coin This Famous Phrase? [...] Garson O’Toole, author of Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations (2017), has debunked several of these citations. In examining the "insanity" quote, O’Toole found no evidence of Einstein imparting the thought. Instead, he discovered the phrase likely originated in the early 1980s—some 25 years following Einstein’s death in 1955—at 12-step meetings. During a 1981 gathering of Alcoholics Anonymous, a participant was overheard by a journalist uttering the phrase, a possible reference to using other unsuccessful strategies to deal with their substance abuse issues. It was quickly and closely echoed in a pamphlet for Narcotics Anonymous that same year, albeit in a slightly different format: "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."