the saying wouldn't be anything like as pithy and memorable if it tried to cover all that ground.

An aphorism is not supposed to be a treatise. The beauty of them is their laconic expression of a general truth. It should not be interpreted as having no exceptions ever, so should not be taken too literally. Just like rules, in fact ;-)


There are rules that wise men obey fully, because they know that breaking the rule is likely to have consequences whose unpleasantness clearly exceeds any benefit obtained by breaking the rule.

Again, the saying does not say that wise men never follow rules, or don't often need to heed them. It only says that rules may (or may not) help guide you to a better decision about how to act. While for those who sadly lack the judgment to make such determinations, it is probably better for them to blindly do what they are told.

I'm going to make the wild assumption here that most people who engage this site are fairly educated and intelligent, and therefore qualify for the right to use their discretion about when to follow a rule and when to override it. I've never met the rule yet that doesn't have an exception. Most have many.

Anyway, the issue here wasn't whether we should break rules or not, so much as when we should ignore the fact that somebody else has broken a rule. There isn't a rule for that so you're just going to have to work it out for yourself!