An exception to every rule

One well-known rule is that there is an exception to every rule. Is this true? Now it could be that a rule, strictly speaking, is something which can never allow any exception (else it would not be a rule in the strict sense). Certain mathematical or logical rules could be of this type, or certain laws of nature. There can be rules that, by definition, allow no exceptions, in which case the statement that there is an exception to every rule must be false, with respect to rules defined strictly. Furthermore, if we find a rule that seems to have an exception, this rule is not a rule in the strict sense.

But perhaps our rule that every rule has an exception is true, in which case there can be no rules of the strict sort. Certain rules which can have no exceptions by definition must not be rules, but something else, call them laws, laws which the very structure of reality enforce, making them impossible, even conceptually, to break. Everything else is a rule, which while it might hold fast generally, can always admit of an exception. Thus, if our statement is true, there is no contradiction in the idea of it itself allowing no exceptions because it itself is a law, not a rule. If you say that every unbreakable law can always be broken, you are simply misusing language. If you say that despite the fact that rules generally hold true and laws (in the social sense) are generally enforced, there can always be exceptions to the rules or breaking of the law, you are only saying what is generally known. Rules don’t mean anything if they are always broken. They might be interesting ideas or conceptual curiosities, these always-excepted rules, if they are not completely nonsensical, but we know what rules and laws amount to in their various contexts. If we say that “there is always an exception” holds universally, and so there must be an exception to this rule, then that exception would be a rule in the strict sense, one that cannot be broken. If we say “there is always a way to find an exception to a rule with no possible exceptions,” then I am at a loss to know what this means. Perhaps if it were the case that the universe had never existed, all unbreakable laws would be void, simply because they had never existed in the first place. Perhaps we can imagine that not only has the universe never existed, but it is impossible for it ever to have existed, existence itself being fundamentally impossible. I am also at a loss to know what this statement means. [However, these concepts might still be susceptible to fruitful analysis.]