Only Exception Quotes & Sayings

We have been trained to think of patterns, with the exception of those of music, as fixed affairs. It is easier and lazier that way but, of course, all nonsense. In truth, the right way to begin to think about the pattern which connects is to think of it as primarily (whatever that means) a dance of interacting parts and only secondarily pegged down by various sorts of physical limits and by those limits which organisms characteristically impose. — Gregory Bateson

Everybody has something to tell. Everyone has a story. I want to know yours. — Magan Vernon

Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority
where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;
exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense. — Friedrich Nietzsche

While one could hardly say that philosophers have given much attention to the place that the concept of evil has among our moral concepts, they have done so more in the last ten or so years than they had before. I have, therefore, often wondered why there has been so little discussion of goodness. In Search of Goodness is not only an exception: it is an admirable one. It is original and provocative, impressive both in its breadth and depth. — Raimond Gaita

So now you must choose ... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults. Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder ... — Jostein Gaarder

The case of the Seminoles constitutes at present the only exception to the successful efforts of the Government to remove the Indians to the homes assigned them west of the Mississippi. — Martin Van Buren

I honestly don't think Peter is that interesting without Harriet - the only exception being 'The Nine Tailors', which is such a good book it doesn't really matter whether he's got a consort or not. — Jill Paton Walsh

In one way or another everything communicates. Human are the only creatures on earth, with the exception of cats, that are certain of the absolute critical nature of the message they try to convey. I have found that the only difference between the two is that cats are correct, while humans...eh...not so much. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time we are just making stuff up. And some of us have elevated it to a seriously messed up art form. — Cindy Cruciger

For their size, crows are among the brainiest organisms on Earth, outclassing not only other birds (with the possible exception of parrots), but also most mammals. — Candace Savage

All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism, self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like that ... The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests. — Leo Tolstoy

Indeed, liberation from outer domination is necessary, because such domination cripples the inner man, with the exception of rare individuals. But the one-sidedness of the emphasis on outer liberation also did great damage. In the first place, the liberators often transformed themselves into new rulers, only mouthing the ideologies of freedom. Second, political liberation could hide the fact that new un-freedom developed, but in hidden and anonymous forms. This is the case in Western democracy, where political liberation hides the fact of dependency in many disguises. — Erich Fromm

New York apartments are notoriously small, and my cute little studio is no exception - space is at a premium, which is one of the reasons that I only have a mini-fridge. Great for leftovers, cheese, and chilling Diet Coke. — Rachel Sklar

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

With the solitary exception of the Eskimos, there isn't a people on Earth who doesn't use psychoactive plants to effect a change in consciousness, and there probably never has been. As for the Eskimos, their exception only proves the rule: historically, Eskimos didn't use psychoactive plants because none of them will grow in the Arctic. (As soon as the white man introduced the Eskimo to fermented grain, he immediately joined the consciousness changers.) What this suggests is that the desire to alter one's experience of consciousness may be universal. — Michael Pollan

The uneducated person perceives only the individual phenomenon, the partly educated person the rule, and the educated person the exception. — Franz Grillparzer

Most things fail with age. Our hands and backs stiffen. Our eyes dim. Skin roughens and our beauty fades. The only exception is the voice. Properly cared for, a voice does nothing but grow sweeter with age and constant use. — Patrick Rothfuss

I now understand that my welfare is only possible if I acknowledge my unity with all the people of the world without exception. — Leo Tolstoy

I have become convinced, through my studies, that the only way to achieve a safe, just and viable world is to live by the Golden Rule. This is what drives my writing. I want to point out this interconnectedness, point out the beauty of the faith in all traditions without exception, show the complexity of the atrocities that we have experienced, and our shared culpability as a species. — Karen Armstrong

The last door on the second story was the exception. Fresh gold letters:

MAHONEY & ASSOCIATES, PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS.

Mahoney sat inside. The only associate was the fifth of rye residing in his bottom desk drawer. — Tim Dorsey

Yet in reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all those with a take on the future of the potato crisp, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.
Our era is perverse in passing off an exception as a rule. — Alain De Botton

Then, for no reason I could tell you, I tossed the spool again, even though Elaine had asked me not to. Maybe only because, in a way, him chasing a spool was like old people having their slow and careful version of sex - you might not want to watch it , you who are young and convinced that, when it comes to old age, an exception will be made in your case, but they still want to do it. — Stephen King

I only like luxury fashion. You have to decide where you stand. I like well-made, authentic clothes, well-crafted tailoring. I also like the dream and fantasy of luxury, the exception and rarity of it. I have no interest at all in fast retail. It is ambiguous. — Hedi Slimane

Growing up it was the exception because I was maybe the only one in my school or my circle of friends that had that experience. But now that I know more people in the industry, I am realizing this happens to almost everybody. — Anna Chlumsky

The chemist Peter Atkins correctly observed, "Natural selection was a revolution and a stepping-stone to fame; so was relativity, and so was quantum theory. The sheer thrill of discovery is the spur to greater effort. All young scientists aspire to revolution." The same can't be said for theologians (Martin Luther is a rare exception), who either bear their heresies in silence or aspire only to trivial reinterpretations of church doctrine. — Jerry A. Coyne

One cannot blame an organization that picks up an occasional black sheep, one only takes exception if it retains an accumulation of them. — Dion Fortune

As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics ... The effect will occur always without exception, because the cause of the phenomena is accurately defined. Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined,Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined, can we compile statistics ... we must learn therefore that we compile statistics only when we cannot possibly help it; for in my opinion, statistics can never yield scientific truth. — Claude Bernard

Manage by exception.Only require reporting when there is a deviation from the plan. — Brian Tracy

Remember: there is no place, no community, no external circumstance that is not serviceable for the battle you have chosen. The exception is only such work as directly serves your vices. — Tito Colliander

Miss Remy, I don't know what kind of signals you are trying to give me, but the more you challenge me, the sexier I find you. — Magan Vernon

For now, I'll let you please temporary amnesia," he said and lifted my chin to him. "But I'm never going to forget what it felt like when you were biting my lip instead of your own." -Trey to Monica, The Only Exception — Magan Vernon

Tibetans are not famed for their perseverance. Full of enthusiasm at the start, and ready for anything new, their interest flags before long. For this reason I kept losing pupils and replacing them, which was not very satisfactory for me. The children of good families whom I taught were without exception intelligent and wide awake, and were not inferior to our children in comprehension. In the Indian schools the Tibetan pupils are ranked for intelligence with Europeans. One must remember that they have to learn the language of their teachers. In spite of that handicap, they are often at the head of the class. There was a boy from Lhasa at St. Joseph's College, at Darjeeling, who was not only the best scholar in the school, but also champion in all the games and sports. — Heinrich Harrer

With the exception of autotrophic bacteria, the green, or chlorophyll-bearing, plants are the only living forms on this planet capable of synthesizing organic matter out of inorganic elements and simple compounds. — Selman Waksman

It's all a risk. Always. That's not true, actually. The only exception: it's a certainty that there's risk. The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is. That's because the world is certainly, definitely, and more than possibly changing. — Seth Godin

Contact with humans is to be limited
and on their territory only, you know that.
And no one lives in this house except brothers
and their shellans, if they have them."
"What about Butch?"
"He's the sole exception. And he's only allowed because V dreams of him."
Lover Eternal — J.R. Ward

As a small child I had discovered that only two places are available to those who wish to remain concealed. The choices are to be a nonentity or an exception. You either disappear into a plebeian background or move forward to where most others fear to follow. — Bryce Courtenay

These tales, without exception, express the truth that justice triumphs in the end. They all contain the idea that it is worth while to fight for the truth, in any situation.
In this fight man is assisted by more powerful beings than ordinary mortals. And the triumph of justice is the only sense and consolation in this world. Indeed, the world itself started out with this hope. The human race received it long, long ago as a cradle-song. — Gyula Illyes

Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? In my judgment, Socrates, the question has now become ridiculous. We know that, when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with all kinds of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power; and shall we be told that when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, life is still worth having to a man, if only he be allowed to do whatever he likes with the single exception that he is not to acquire justice and virtue, or to escape from injustice and vice; assuming them both to be such as we have described? — Plato

In the inky stillness of the next morning, Lisette woke up and dressed quietly in the silks her elderly mother still sent her from Paris- cool slippery things that made her feel like she was covering herself with fresh air. For a while, after she left Paris, Lisette threw away her mother's packages on principle. Lisette was not the same vain pretty girl her mother had once known. But then Lisette started making an exception for the lingerie. It was not vain if no one but herself saw her wear them. She then put on a blue dress and a freshly laundered apron that smelled like lemongrass soap Eby used for the camp's sheets and towels, the only soap that could take out the damp mustiness that wanted to cling to everything in this place. — Sarah Addison Allen

Cultures the world over consider their staple the incarnation of God: Buffalo for the Cheyenne, Corn for the Hopi, Cattle for the Massai, Wheat (bread) for the Christians. What I've seen about hunting and gathering peoples, they are the only ones who can fully grasp and accept the Holy Communion. (Funny how we think we have to cram our little wafers down their throats.) All life forms are the sacrificial victim - there's absolutely no exception; all are food. — Daniel Suelo

You may not have signed up for a hero's journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn't matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure - hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we'll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it's choosing courage over comfort. — Brene Brown

There seemed to be so many things that I needed, but I held myself in check and purchased only essentials - with the exception of one extravagance. I had determined that I would drink my tea like a lady, even in a log house; so I purchased a teapot and two cups and saucers of fine china. I felt somehow Mama's mind would be much more at ease about me if she knew that I was having my tea in the proper fashion. After all, civilization could not be too far away from Pine Springs if I had such amenities! — Janette Oke

Relativism reduces every element of absoluteness to relativity while making a completely illogical exception in favor of this reduction itself. Fundamentally it consists in propounding the claim that there is no truth as if this were truth or in declaring it to be absolutely true that there is nothing but the relatively true; one might just as well say that there is no language or write that there is no writing. In short, every idea is reduced to a relativity of some sort, whether psychological, historical, or social; but the assertion nullifies itself by the fact that it too presents itself as a psychological, historical, or social relativity. The assertion nullifies itself if it is true and by nullifying itself logically proves thereby that it is false; its initial absurdity lies in the implicit claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is declared to be the only possibility. — Frithjof Schuon

If stress were only caused by external events or other people, everyone, without exception, would respond in the same way to the same kind of external provocations. — Gudjon Bergmann

Nobody ever took my picture. They didn't want to. Or I wouldn't let them.
You were the only exception. — David Levithan

The 2011 legislation was an effort to decrease the number of students competing with families and working people for scarce housing. San Francisco is home to 82,000 full-time students in 31 colleges and universities, but its institutes of higher learning provide housing for only about one-tenth of that population. In contrast, Boston successfully pushed its schools to meet the housing needs of 50 percent of students. The Board of Supervisors passed the law that made student housing exempt from the affordable-housing fee developers must pay. But with the exception of Kennedy, who has been building student housing in Berkeley for 20 years, no developers have stepped up to take advantage of the law. — Anonymous

It is a well-known fact that English people never know anything. They only think. The only exception they know and they are sure about in the whole world is Marmite. 'Love it or hate it.' There are no other options; there is no space for grey space. — Angela Kiss

Syn? You're crushing me." Pouting, he looked down at her. "I don't want to move." A smile spread across her face. "And I kind of like you where you are. But you weigh about a ton and a half and this floor is really hard." He snorted. "Excuse me, I take great exception to that. I only weigh a ton."
-Shahara & Syn — Sherrilyn Kenyon

An exceptional woman with all the desired qualities exists only in a man's imagination. — Michael Bassey Johnson

[I]n America, at least, we have a pretty good record for behaving in a fiscally responsible fashion, with one exception - namely, the fiscal irresponsibility that prevails when, and only when, hard-line conservatives are in power. — Paul Krugman

However, today due to civil litigation funded by cults this option for families has been eliminated. Instead, the only form of cult intervention now practiced is voluntary-with the exception of minor children under the direct supervision of a custodial parent. — Rick Ross

Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honour, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raisonneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honour, to die young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age. Each of these ambitions had something to recommend it from one angle or another, with the possible exception of being poor - the only aim Trapnel achieved with unqualified mastery - and even being poor, as Trapnel himself asserted, gave the right to speak categorically when poverty was discussed by people like Evadne Clapham. — Anthony Powell

It is only by starting at an unusually young age and by practicing with such ferocious devotion that it is possible to accumulate ten thousand hours while still in adolescence. Far from being an exception to the ten-thousand-hour rule, Mozart is a shining testament to it. — Matthew Syed

I respect the IBF obligation to fight Povetkin, but I would like the exception to fight David Haye. That is the only title the Klitschkos don't have. We have them all except the WBA, which is why Haye is such an interesting cookie for me to eat. — Wladimir Klitschko

But all historians, one may say without exception, and in no half-hearted manner, but making this the beginning and end of their labour, have impressed on us that the soundest education and training for a life of active politics is the study of History, and that surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune, is to recall the calamities of others. — Polybius

But newspapers have a duty to truth,' Van said.
Lev clucked his tongue. 'They tell the truth only as the exception. Zola wrote that the mendacity of the press could be divided into two groups: the yellow press lies every day without hesitating. But others, like the Times, speak the truth on all inconsequential occasions, so they can deceive the public with the requisite authority when it becomes necessary.'
Van got up from his chair to gather the cast-off newspapers. Lev took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. 'I don't mean to offend the journalists; they aren't any different from other people. They're merely the megaphones of the other people. — Barbara Kingsolver

Every woman thinks her man is the only exception and every second woman knows he is just the same..
#loyalty — Himmilicious

Jack? ... No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations ... I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest. — Oscar Wilde

I name (Honus) Wagner first on my list, not only because he was a great batting champion and base-runner, and also baseball's foremost shortstop, but because Honus (Wagner) could have been first at any other position, with the possible exception of pitcher. In all my career, I never saw such a versatile player. — John McGraw

With the exception of a gun, starvation is the only thing that is capable of making an insane man lose his mind. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The banking business is no favorite of ours. When assets are twenty times equity - a common ratio in this industry - mistakes that involve only a small portion of assets can destroy a major portion of equity. And mistakes have been the rule rather than the exception at many major banks. — Warren Buffett

To be loved for what one is, that is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him; their own selves, their version of him. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Only since the collapse of the Soviet Union have we learned that the Soviets were in fact developing a moon rocket, known as the N1, in the sixties. All four launch attempts of the N1 ended in explosions. Saturn was the largest rocket in the world, the most complex and powerful ever to fly, and remains so to this day. The fact that it was developed for a peaceful purpose is an exception to every pattern of history, and this is one of the legacies of Apollo. — Margaret Lazarus Dean

The only thing I insist that everybody do is there has to be a basketball court in every game I do, and - with one exception, I let them get away with it once - you can actually shoot a ball through the basket in every game I've made. — Warren Spector

All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass. — Simone Weil

Generally speaking, if a guy breaks your jaw and leg and cuts off your robotic arm, you file charges and get a restraining order. The only exception is when subtle machinations are needed to save the world from a massive, catastrophic alien takeover. But in no other circumstance. — Shannon Hale

Emerence understood nothing of this. She rejected it. Like the leader of some primitive tribe she flew her standard - a sequinned evening dress - against the banner of the Lamb of God. The old woman opposed the church with an almost sixteenth-century fanaticism; not only the priesthood, but God himself and all the biblical characters, with the single exception of Joseph, whom she revered for his occupation: her own father had been a carpenter. — Magda Szabo

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability. — Brene Brown

One could dismiss the zombie trend as merely feeding a mass public that craves the strange and bizarre. Such an explanation would be only skin-deep. Popular culture often provides a window into the subliminal or unstated fears of citizens, and zombies are no exception. Some cultural commentators argue that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are a primary cause for renewed interest in the living dead, and the numbers appear to back up this assertion. — Daniel Drezner

If all men have "free will" and yet all without exception are under God's wrath, then it follows that "free will" leads them in only one direction - "ungodliness and unrighteousness" (i.e., wickedness). So where is the power of "free will" helping them to do good? If "free will" exists, it does not seem to be able to help men to salvation because it still leaves them under the wrath of God. — Martin Luther

I am, I think the only surviving member of the original Battle Creek church. The church was disbanded, with the exception of thirteen members, in 1870. — John Harvey Kellogg

I have to certainly stand for life. I know that there are some who disagree, and I respect their point of view. But I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have to have on abortion is in that case - of the life of the mother. I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. — Richard Mourdock

They see nothing indecent in sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and indulge in it quite openly, in full view of everyone. The only exception was Socrates, who was always swearing that his relations with young men were purely Platonic, but nobody believed him for a moment, and Hyacinthus and Narcissus gave first-hand evidence to the contrary. — Lucian Of Samosata

For too long we have occupied ourselves with responding to the consequences of cruelty and abuse and have neglected the important task of building up an ethical system in which justice for animals is regarded as the norm rather than the exception. Our only hope is to put our focus on the education of the young. — John Hoyt

The justice of any single commandment cannot be proven logically in an irrefutable manner, and there is no moral law which is binding under all conditions without exception. Ethics, generally, exist only as far as we are willing to accept them.
(from 'The Specter of Alexander Wolf') — Gaito Gazdanov

You must all be aware that modern war is not a mere matter of military operations. It involves the whole strength and all the resources of the nation. Not only soldiers, but also all citizens without exception, take part. — Chiang Kai-shek

And when you came right down to it, the only purpose to life that I have ever been able to find is not to die. You couldn't let them push you out the door to go gentle into that good night. You had to rage, rage, and slam that door on the bastards' fingers. That was the contest - to delay the end of your personal match as long as you could. The point was not to win; you never did. Nobody can win in a game that ends with everybody dying - always, without exception. No, the only real point was to fight back and enjoy the combat. And by gum, I would. — Jeff Lindsay

Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this criticism is an indication that our society is still radically pluralistic. Not only are there plenty of exceptionalists who take exception to the stereotyping of the mass culture but that very string of epithets comes from a series of books that have been recent best-sellers, symptoms of a popular, living tradition of dissent from things as they are. — Kenneth Rexroth

Where are the ethical concerns, that so many people called animal lovers invoke, when you steal the children of wild dog mothers and other family members from right before their eyes? Do ethics always refer only to what people think appropriate for purely subjective reasons?
Ultimately, our long-term research resulted in a very sad picture: With the exception of the random puppy, who today as an adult actually is interested in people, neither male Maccia nor the most of the other "rescued" dogs are socially and environmentally secure, but had remained shy and partly vegetate in kennels with empty eyes. Such dogs are neither fish nor fowl, although taken from the wild population in the early age of about eight to twelve weeks (except Maccia, whom Funny "rescued" at the age of four months, which is even more irresponsible). — Gunther Bloch

The only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution. ... On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null. — Alexander Hamilton

But with one exception, all things pass from this world and time erases not just memories but entire civilizations, reducing everyone and every monument to dust. The only thing that survives is love, for it is an energy as enduring as light, which travels outward from its source toward the ever-expanding boundaries of the universe, the very energy of which all things were conceived and with which all things will be sustained in a world beyond this world of time and dust and forgetting. — Dean Koontz

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs. — P. J. O'Rourke

The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: that
people do not see that the exception proves the rule. Thus it may
or may not be right to kill a murderer; but it can only conceivably
be right to kill a murderer because it is wrong to kill a man. — G.K. Chesterton

If they could swing it, most parents visited during meals to try to make their child's hospital room into a piece of the familiar by eating with them, and the kids - without exception - were too kind to tell them it only made home look that much farther away. — Kim Harrison

What is special about VOIP is that it's just another thing you can do on the Internet, whereas it is the only thing - or nearly the only thing with the exception of the dial-up modem and fax - that you can do on the public switched telephone network. — Vint Cerf

Perhaps there may come into my art also, no less than into my life, a still deeper note, one of greater unity of passion, and directness of impulse. Not width but intensity is the true aim of modern art. We are no longer in art concerned with the type. It is with the exception that we have to do. I cannot put my sufferings into any form they took, I need hardly say. Art only begins where Imitation ends, but something must come into my work, of fuller memory of words perhaps, of richer cadences, of more curious effects, of simpler architectural order, of some aesthetic quality at any rate. — Oscar Wilde

...Americans didn't stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years - so typical a place that it only looks like an exception. — Jerry Herron

Deborah is a great exception to the rule, in a matter of speaking because God chose her to lead Israel. She was the only female judge of Israel which speaks volumes to the fact that God will use anyone who is willing to allow him to lead. — M.S. Kimball

The remainder of my estate, including twenty-two percent of Barrington Shipping, as well as the Manor House - " Mr. Siddons couldn't resist a glance in the direction of Lady Virginia Fenwick, who was sitting on the edge of her seat - "is to be left to my beloved ... daughters Emma and Grace, to dispose of as they see fit, with the exception of my Siamese cat, Cleopatra, who I leave to Lady Virginia Fenwick, because they have so much in common. They are both beautiful, well-groomed, vain, cunning, manipulative predators, who assume that everyone else was put on earth to serve them, including my besotted son, who I can only pray will break from the spell she has cast on him before it is too late. — Jeffrey Archer

There have been times I've wondered if I could ever allow myself to trust a guy. For the most part, I hate men because the only example I have is my father. But spending all this time with Atlas is changing me. Not in a huge way, I don't think. I still distrust most people. But Atlas is changing me enough to believe that maybe he's an exception to the norm — Colleen Hoover

She [Bernice] didn't like anything that had an adult theme, with only one exception, her collection of erotic female memorabilia. They were all antiques, fragments of other women's sexuality that was somehow easier to deal with than her own. — K. Ford K.

Men are indeed to be taught that the favour of God is offered, without exception, to all who ask it; but since those only begin to ask whom heaven by grace inspires, even this minute portion of praise must not be withheld from Him. It is the privilege of the elect to be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and then placed under His guidance and government. — John Calvin

Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception? — John Henry Newman

Everyone knows history is written by the winners, but that cliche misses a crucial detail: Over time, the winners are always the progressives. Conservatism can only win in the short term, because society cannot stop evolving (and social evolution inevitably dovetails with the agenda of those who see change as an abstract positive). It might take seventy years, but it always happens eventually. Serious historians are, almost without exception, self-styled progressives. Radical views
even the awful ones
improve with age. — Chuck Klosterman

Music is the only thing in this world, with the exception of sneezing and looking at the sunset, that takes you to a place that's above the mundane. Everything else is just bullshit. — Stephan Jenkins

The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock. — Oscar Straus

He had thought at first that they were all of common stature and costume, with the evident exception of the hairy Gogol. But as he looked at the others, he began to see in each of them exactly what he had seen in the man by the river, a demoniac detail somewhere. That lop-sided laugh, which would suddenly disfigure the fine face of his original guide, was typical of all these types. Each man had something about him, perceived perhaps at the tenth or twentieth glance, which was not normal, and which seemed hardly human. The only metaphor he could think of was this, that they all looked as men of fashion and presence would look, with the additional twist given in a false and curved mirror. — G.K. Chesterton

To say that everything without exception is going straight to hell is not an alternative vision but only an inversion of the mainstream's 'everything's fine.' — Rebecca Solnit

The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits ... [The Scripture] teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love. — John Calvin

We visit the Launch Control building, where on one wall of the seventies-style lobby are hung the mission patches of every human spaceflight that has ever been launched from here, 149 to date. Beneath each mission patch is a small plaque showing the launch and landing dates. Two of them - Challenger's STS-51L and Columbia's STS-107 - are missing landing dates, because both of these missions ended in disasters that destroyed the orbiters and killed their crews. The blank spaces on the wall where those landing dates should have been are discolored from the touch of people's hands. This would be unremarkable if this place were a tourist attraction, or regularly open to the public. But with the rare exception of Family Days, this building is open only to people who work here. In other words, it's launch controllers, managers, and engineers who have been touching these empty spaces with their hands, on their way to and from doing their jobs. After — Margaret Lazarus Dean

We want to help you regain clarity about your individual power. Everyone has it. No one can ever take it away from you. No one can ever do anything "bad" to you. No one can assert into your experience. Everything, without exception, comes only by your individual invitation to it. Do you understand the process of asking? When you give something your attention and it becomes your dominant vibration relative to the subject-that is your asking. So, deliberate creating is not so much about looking out into the world and saying, "Oh, there are things that are good that I want to create or attract into my experience, and there are things that are bad that I don't want to create or attract into your my experience." Deliberate creating is more about deliberate allowing. Deliberate allowing is more like deliberate vibration. — Abraham Hicks