Quotes & Sayings About Exceptions To Rules

I'd made a long list of exceptions to cover the area between "ignoring her completely" and "abducting her at knifepoint. — Dan Wells

Lord Darlington (LD): I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. Lady Windemere (LW): If we had 'hard-and-fast rules' we would find life much simpler. LD: You allow of no exceptions? LW: None! LD: Ah, what a fascinating Puritan you are, LW. LW: The adjective was unnecessary, LD. — Oscar Wilde

At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate hadbut one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it. — Calvin Coolidge

No exceptions to exceptions! — Raheel Farooq

The only good thing about religion is the music. Because nature is filled with balances and opposites, there are always exceptions to the overall rules, whether the overall rules are bleak or otherwise. If you propound a joyous theory of existence, I will find an exception to that. If I propound a bleak theory, someone will find a joyous exception. That's just nature being nature, I think, and I don't think it offers a lot of hope. It's sort of a respite along the way. — George Carlin

There were no rules when it came to writing, he said. Take a close look at the lives of poets and novelists, and what you wound up with was unalloyed chaos, an infinite jumble of exceptions. That was because writing was a disease, Tom continued, what you might call an infection or influenza of the spirit, and therefore it could strike anyone at any time. The young and the old, the strong and the weak, the drunk and the sober, the sane and the insane. Scan the roster of the giants and semi-giants, and you would discover writers who embraced every sexual proclivity, every political bent, and every human attribute - from the loftiest idealism to the most insidious corruption. They were criminals and lawyers, spies and doctors, soldiers and spinsters, travelers and shut-ins. — Paul Auster

Some genres I'm not a huge fan of but there are always exceptions that break the rules. There are always a few people doing it in a way weird enough to grab my attention. — Ville Valo

Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.
Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..
Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.
Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.
Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.
Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written.
Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.
Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.
Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.
Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.
Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.
The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses. — Malak El Halabi

Nature provides exceptions to every rule. — Margaret Fuller

It is paltry philosophy if in the old-fashioned way one lays down rules and principles in total disregard of moral values . As soon as these appear one regards them as exceptions, which gives them a certain scientific status, and thus makes them into rules. Or again one may appeal to genius , which is above all rules; which amounts to admitting that rules are not only made for idiots , but are idiotic in themselves. — Carl Von Clausewitz

99% of all addicts are liars and thieves. This might sound unfair and even close-minded, but it's the truth. There are some exceptions to the rules, but they are incredibly rare. Most people are no match for their addictions. They will be driven to do things they would normally never have considered all in the name of getting high. Sad, but true. So if you're thinking of trying drugs, keep in mind that all the people you will be dealing with are likely to steal from you and lie to you at your own expense. — Ashly Lorenzana

There are those whose sole claim to profundity is the discovery of exceptions to the rules. — Paul Eldridge

Just as I know the usual rules of law enforcement, I also know the exceptions and invoke those frequently. I don't feel a need to bog the reader down with an explanation of why the procedures are realistic, as long as I know that there is, in fact, an explanation. — Alafair Burke

What makes a good judge? Confidence for one. An expert, in Shanteau's view, is someone good at convincing others he or she is an expert. Good judges may make small errors, but they will "generally avoid large mistakes." When they encounter exceptions, experts are good at making"single-case deviations in their decision patterns." Novices, meanwhile, tend to stick stubbornly to the rules, even when they are inappropriate. — Tom Vanderbilt

When certain concepts of TeX are introduced informally, general rules will be stated; afterwards you will find that the rules aren't strictly true. In general, the later chapters contain more reliable information than the earlier ones do. The author feels that this technique of deliberate lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. Once you understand a simple but false rule, it will not be hard to supplement that rule with its exceptions. — Donald Knuth

What puzzled me was why I seemed to be so troubled by all these irregularities and exceptions to major rules while others blithely marched ahead. — Catherine Gildiner

Thucydides wrote of people who made rules and followed them. Going by rule they killed entire classes of enemies without exception. Most of those who died felt, I am sure, that a terrible mistake was being made, that, whatever the rule was, it could not be meant for them. 'I--!': that was their last word as their throats were cut. A word of protest: I, the exception.

"Were they exceptions? The truth is, given time to speak, we would all claim to be exceptions. For each of us there is a case to be made. We all deserve the benefit of the doubt.

"But there are times when there is no time for all that close listening, all those exceptions, all that mercy. There is no time, so we fall back on the rule. And that is a great pity, the greatest pity. That is what you could have learned from Thucydides. It is a great pity when we find ourselves entering upon times like those. We should enter upon them with a sinking heart. They are by no means to be welcomed. — J.M. Coetzee

Mr. Klamp laid down the law. No tardiness, no talking above 40 decibels, no untied shoelaces, no visible undergarments, no eating, no chewing gum, no chewing tobacco, no chewing betel nuts, no chewing coca leaves, no chewing out students (unless Mr. Klamp was doing the chewing out), no chewing out teachers (unless ditto), no unnecessary displays of temper (unless ditto), no unnecessary displays of affection (no exceptions), no pets over one ounce or under one ton, and no singing, except in Bulgarian. I began to think Mr Klamp wouldn't be so bad ... — Polly Shulman

While we think of the boundary between what is legal and what is not as a clear dividing line, it is far from being so. Rather, the boundary becomes further and further indented and folded over time, yielding a jagged and complicated border, rather than a clear straight line. In the end, the law turns out to look like a fractal: no matter how much you zoom in on such a shape, there is always more unevenness, more detail to observe. Any general rule must end up dealing with exceptions, which in turn split into further exceptions and rules, yielding an increasingly complicated, branching structure. — Samuel Arbesman

Look for the exception to every rule and you'll find it. — Marty Rubin

To every rule there is an exception - and an idiot ready to demonstrate it. Don't be the one! — Vera Nazarian

As a General Authority, it is my responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don't try to define all the exceptions... I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work out individually between you and the Lord. — Dallin H. Oaks

In life there might be rules. In love there are no exceptions to those rules. No one is spared from heartbreak. We all suffer it at some point or another. You simply can't control who you love and in particular, you can't control what kind of person they are. — J.C. Reed

You will fall to ruin because you believe that exceptions to the rule make new rules. — Pierce Brown

But one of the rules I don't like to break is we still do - 95% of our movies are low budget. We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions, there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading. — Jason Blum

The irony of this endeavor is palpable, for English itself is a hopeless hodgepodge of other tongues, with more exceptions than rules, more chaos than order, and enough new words created each day to keep the Oxford English Dictionary folks very, very busy. — George Takei

There are exceptions to all rules, but it seldom answers to follow the advice of an opponent. — Benjamin Disraeli

Sometimes the person everyone is afraid of alarming or offending has a slightly less fixed idea about what sort of person they are, and they're neither alarmed nor offended. Unaware that others have carved their likes and dislikes in the psychological equivalent of stone, they dare to make exceptions to their own rules in a way that their nearest and dearest might not. — Sophie Hannah

Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to ... Anyone will renovate his science who will steadily look after the irregular phenomena, and when science is renewed, its new formulas often have more of the voice of the exceptions in them than of what were supposed to be the rules. — William James

In America, being able to get things done, especially if it's by bending rules, making exceptions, or calling in a favor, is the way to show power. In France, being able to say non (especially to a bureaucratically legitimate request) is the way to show power. And piss me off. — Vivian Swift

There's an exception to every rule, Nora. And you've never failed at being the exception before. — Marilyn Grey

As much as it was like anything, magic was like a language. And like a language, textbooks and teachers treated it as an orderly system for the purposes of teaching it, but in reality it was complex and chaotic and organic. It obeyed rules only to the extent that it felt like it, and there were almost as many special cases and one-time variations as there were rules. These Exceptions were indicated by rows of asterisks and daggers and other more obscure typographical fauna which invited the reader to peruse the many footnotes that cluttered up the margins of magical reference books like Talmudic commentary. — Lev Grossman

It also strikes me that male-to-male bonding can create a gender role conflict, as it challenges the myth of full independence. Heroism is an exception. In fact, heroism has a long tradition as part of manhood. Bonds formed through natural disaster or war are exceptions to the typical "self-reliance" rules. These are op-portunities for men to experience a type of connection with each other that is ordinarily prohibited by the "rules" of manhood. — Mary Crocker Cook

A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief
as well as injustice
to those who should gain exemptions from the rule's functioning. — Derrick A. Bell

Truth is not the rule, but the exception to the rule. — Marty Rubin

I cannot be bound to the confines of your rules. I am the exception to them. — Truth Devour