3 October—Everybody knows that Albert Einstein observed, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Getting past all the Generation Y, Z, and Alphas (as well as old-fashioned ignoramuses, of course) who likely have no idea who Einstein was or what he accomplished, there are problems with that definition.

For starters, that’s not at all the definition of insanity. Think about it. Insanity is unsoundness of mind, madness, lunacy, craziness, psychopathy. The Brits call it being sectioned, involuntarily detained in a mental hospital under the relevant section of the 1959 Mental Health Act.

So must one be insane to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? It’s possible, to be sure. But might one simply be stupid? Or could one just as well be misguided, stubborn, tenacious, unrealistic, aggressive, even hopeful? All those things?

And, lest we forget, Albert Einstein didn’t define insanity that way at all. If at all.

Nor did the great man observe: “Not everything that counts can be counted.” or “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” or “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.” or “Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”

At least, not in public . . .