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Who really said it

Every individual is an exception to the rule

Written by Carl Jung 1875–1961 · Swiss psychiatrist, founder of analytical psychology
Verified Free to reuse in the US

Genuinely Jung — but not from the book almost everyone cites. The sentence sits on page 295 of his essay “Psychological Types,” a paper read at the International Congress of Education in Territet, Switzerland in 1923 and printed in the 1925 Morton Prince festschrift Problems of Personality. Quote Investigator adds the important caveat: an anonymous Edinburgh Review critic wrote a near-identical line in April 1906, so Jung popularised the saying rather than coined it.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Every individual is an exception to the rule” Carl Jung, "Psychological Types," in Problems of Personality (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1925), 295; paper read at the International Congress of Education, Territet, 1923. Note: an anonymous reviewer in The Edinburgh Review wrote a near-identical line in 1906. Verified via Quotle.info. Verbatim: “Clear and simple though the fundamental principle of the two opposing attitudes may be, nevertheless their concrete reality is complicated and obscure, for every individual is an exception to the rule.”

Can you use it?

Free to use in the US, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed. Outside the US it is not that simple: Jung died in 1961, so in life-plus-70 countries (UK/EU) his text stays in copyright until 2032. See the rights note for the full picture.

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Work
“Psychological Types,” in Problems of Personality: Studies Presented to Dr. Morton Prince
Published
1925 · Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London · article begins p. 289, quotation on p. 295
Delivered
Paper read at the International Congress of Education, Territet, Switzerland, 1923
Translation
English as printed in the 1925 volume; the 1928 reprint in Contributions to Analytical Psychology used H. G. and Cary F. Baynes’s translation

Although there are without a doubt individuals in whom one can recognise the type at a first glance, for the most part this is by no means the case. As a rule only careful observation and a weighing of the evidence permits a sure classification. Clear and simple though the fundamental principle of the two opposing attitudes may be, nevertheless their concrete reality is complicated and obscure, for every individual is an exception to the rule. Therefore, one can never give a description of a type, no matter how complete, which applies to more than one individual despite the fact that thousands might, in a certain sense, be strikingly described thereby. Conformity is one side of a man, uniqueness is the other. Problems of Personality (1925), p. 295

The famous clause is a subordinate one — Jung wrote it as a warning label on his own typology, not as a standalone aphorism. The 1928 Baynes reprint revises the sentences around it (“which absolutely applies to one individual… strikingly characterized by it”) while keeping the key clause word for word.

Scanned volume
Read Problems of Personality (Kegan Paul, 1925) at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator: “Every Individual Is an Exception to the Rule”

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator traced the line to Jung’s 1925 article “Psychological Types” in Problems of Personality (start page 289, quote page 295), noting the citation was verified with scans, and states the quotation appeared in neither the German nor the English translation of the 1921 book.
  • We confirmed it directly in the Internet Archive scan of the 1925 Kegan Paul volume: the clause “for every individual is an exception to the rule” falls under the running head “PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES 295,” and the article opens on page 289 with the footnote “Paper read at the International Congress of Education.”
  • The same sentence runs across pp. 302–303 of Contributions to Analytical Psychology (first published 1928; the linked scan is the 1948 fourth impression, textually identical); Quote Investigator records the piece as the lecture Jung gave at the International Congress of Education at Territet, Switzerland, in 1923.
  • Quote Investigator also records an anonymous reviewer in The Edinburgh Review, April 1906 (vol. 203, quote page 364), writing “In human life every individual is an exception to rules” — and conjectures the remark has been constructed multiple times independently.
Public domain

Problems of Personality was published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. in London in 1925 — comfortably before the 1931 United States cutoff — so both the volume and the English wording printed in it are in the public domain in the US. The 1928 reprint in Contributions to Analytical Psychology, in H. G. and Cary F. Baynes’s translation, is likewise pre-1931.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What people get wrong

The attribution to Jung holds up. What almost every reposting gets wrong is where he wrote it — and whether he thought of it first.

Psychological Types (1921) Mis-sourced

The line is routinely credited to Jung’s famous 1921 book. Quote Investigator checked and states the quotation appeared in neither the German nor the English translation of the 1921 book. It comes from a lecture that carried the same title — “Psychologische Typen” / “Psychological Types” — delivered in 1923 and printed in 1925. The title collision is the whole reason for the confusion.

Jung as originator Not first

Quote Investigator found an unnamed book reviewer in The Edinburgh Review of April 1906 writing “In human life every individual is an exception to rules, the more exceptional as his or her individuality is more strongly marked.” QI’s conclusion is that Jung should be credited with popularising the statement, and that at least one person crafted it before him.

“Conformity is one side of a person” Reworded

The follow-on sentence circulates in a modernised form. Jung’s printed English reads “Conformity is one side of a man, uniqueness is the other” — identically in the 1925 volume and in the 1928 Baynes reprint.

He really wrote it — on page 295 of a 1925 festschrift for Morton Prince, from a lecture given in Territet in 1923. Not in the 1921 book, and, on Quote Investigator’s evidence, not first.

Context

Why it mattered

Jung is usually quoted here as if he were being warmly humanist. He was actually being self-critical. He had just spent a book sorting humanity into two attitudes — extraverted and introverted — crossed with four functions: sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition. Standing in front of an audience of educators at Territet in 1923, he attached the caveat: the scheme describes an average, and the average person is nobody. “The individual soul is not explained by classification,” the passage goes on.

That caveat has outlived most of the typology. It is the sentence people reach for whenever a personality test starts sounding too certain of itself — Quote Investigator notes that Malcolm Gladwell used it in a 2004 New Yorker piece on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, presenting Jung’s own scepticism about slotting people into categories.

Conformity is one side of a man, uniqueness is the other.

Why the 1921 book keeps getting the credit

Jung gave a lecture and a book the same name. The book, Psychologische Typen, was published by Rascher Verlag in 1921 and translated into English by H. Godwyn Baynes; the lecture, delivered to the International Congress of Education at Territet in 1923, summarised the book’s argument for a general audience and was printed in English in 1925.

Because the two share a title, quotation collections file the sentence under the book — where, per Quote Investigator, it does not appear. The 1925 printing is the earliest appearance in English anyone has traced, in a volume assembled to honour the American psychopathologist Morton Prince.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Wisdom Character Doubt

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: Every Individual Is an Exception to the Rulequoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: Jung’s 1925 citation verified with scans, the 1906 Edinburgh Review antecedent, the 1928 reprint, and a German snippet from 1925.
Problems of Personality (Kegan Paul, 1925) — full textarchive.org

The primary source. Jung’s essay “Psychological Types” begins on page 289; the quoted sentence is on page 295.
Contributions to Analytical Psychology — full textarchive.org

The 1928 edition of the same lecture, in the Baynes translation — this scan is the 1948 fourth impression, textually and paginally identical; the sentence runs across pp. 302–303.
Carl Jungen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the Swiss psychiatrist (1875–1961) who founded analytical psychology.
Psychological Types (the 1921 book)en.wikipedia.org

The other work with the same title — German original 1921, English translation by H. Godwyn Baynes — which is where this line is usually and wrongly sourced.
The Edinburgh Review (Google Books scan)books.google.com

The Google Books volume Quote Investigator links for the anonymous 1906 wording, “In human life every individual is an exception to rules.”

The author

About Carl Jung

Carl Jung

1875–1961 · Swiss psychiatrist & founder of analytical psychology

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology after breaking with Freud, and who gave ordinary speech the words introvert and extravert. His 1921 book Psychologische Typen laid out the typology — two attitudes crossed with four functions — that was later commercialised as the Myers-Briggs test. This sentence is Jung supplying his own warning label: the moment he had built the categories, he insisted they described averages and not people.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Jung, C. G. “Psychological Types.” In Problems of Personality: Studies Presented to Dr. Morton Prince, Pioneer in American Psychopathology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1925. Article begins p. 289; quotation on p. 295; paper read at the International Congress of Education, Territet, Switzerland, 1923. Reprinted in Contributions to Analytical Psychology, translated by H. G. and Cary F. Baynes. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1928; quotation on pp. 302–3.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Every individual is an exception to the rule’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/every-individual-is-an-exception-to-the-rule/

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