SHEEPS! How Exceptional!

Exceptions  can be difficult when learning a new language, as my experience  learning Spanish has demonstrated. Twisted and mostly forgotten in the passage on time, the reasons why exceptions exist are not always clear and yet we adhere to the rule of following those exceptions without protest or review.

I  bought a new blanket in Ecuador, a very comfortable and warm blanket,  perfect in every way --- except for one thing --- someone had written "Sheeps" all over the blanket, no doubt referring to the notion of "counting sheep" in order to fall asleep. 

I  got the message even though the method of relaying it was obviously flawed. Inexplicably, the plural of sheep in English is sheep. A non-native speaker of English might easily be fooled into following the generalized rule of adding "s" to make such things plural. But in faithfully following the rule, without exception, this blanket manufacturer arguably produced a flawed blanket -- for the plural of sheep is an exception. 

And  yet, ironically, in this case, the flaw imbued the blanket with a  endearing kind of uniqueness, a reflection of the humanity in all of us  that tries to understand all the things that remain elusive due to the exceptions rife in life.
I  still bought the blanket and I still enjoy the blanket as a very warm  and comfortable addition to my bed. I don't consider it flawed in any respect. It's the way I choose to view it. The flaw would be to  judge such things without factoring in the law of exceptions in life,  if there is such a thing. Perhaps it isn't a law, no more than exceptions in the natural world are flaws that require a separate law to  govern them.

Instead  of reducing life to rules and exceptions, maybe the truth lies in a third option - one that will forever go unnamed. Most things get names but in this case -- I'll make an exception.

"If  Moses had gone to Harvard Law School and spent three years working on  the Hill, he would have written the Ten Commandments with three  exceptions and a saving clause."
Charles Morgan

"Everyone  knows what a curve is, until he has studied enough mathematics to become  confused through the countless number of possible exceptions."
Felix Klein

"A good teacher must know the rules; a good pupil, the exceptions."
Martin H. Fischer

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

"Systems are to be appreciated by their general effects, and not by particular exceptions."
― James F. Cooper

"Every  fundamental law has exceptions. But you still need the law or else all  you have is observations that don't make sense. And that's not science.  That's just taking notes."
― Geoffrey West

"The fact that  anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out  you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have  something figured out, those are the exceptions."
― Conor Oberst

"Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception."
― Carl Sagan

"Nature provides exceptions to every rule."
― Margaret Fuller

"Science does not permit exceptions."
― Claude Bernard

"The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions."
― Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“There’s  always someone or something that will make you feel so strongly that  you will go against everything you are ever taught or planned.”
― Beth Rinyu

“Miracles are exceptions, principles are the rules.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Be the exception, and be happy.”
― Marty Rubin

“How  Ironic, when you do business you create exceptions to create new  opportunities, when you write code (do a job) you handle exception to  make it clean.”
― Pushkar Saraf

"There are two great rules of  life; the one general and the other particular. The first is that  everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is  the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more  or less, an exception to the rule."
― Samuel Butler

"There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception."
― James Thurber

"There are no exceptions to the rule that everybody likes to be an exception to the rule."
― Charles Osgood

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception."
― Oscar Wilde

"Be the exception to the rule. It's the surest way to become exceptional."
― Ron Kaufman