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From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His love of danger, his intense appreciation of the drama of an adventure
all the more intense for being held tightly in
his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, made him a wonderful companion at such hours. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My uncle, Mr. Stephen Maple, had been at the same time the most successful and the least respectable of our family, so that we hardly knew whether to take credit for his wealth or to feel ashamed of his position. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Better to be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother -- Arthur Conan Doyle
[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It shows him to be a very wealthy man. How did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a station master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven hundred a year. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Then he half raised himself from the ground, threw his arms into the air, and fell forward in his side. He was dead. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THREE DAYS LATER A MESSAGE WAS LEFT UNDER A PEBBLE UPON THE SUNDIAL." "'If it really annoys you, Hilton, we might go and travel, you and I, and so avoid this nuisance.' "'What, be driven out of our own house by a practical joker? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
From a drop of water," said the writer, "a logical man could understand oceans and waterfalls without having ever seen or heard of them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Well, sir, let us do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work." I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am a man who am slow to change; and, if you take away from me the faith that I have been taught, it would be long ere I could learn one to set in its place. It is but a chip here and a chip there, yet it may bring the tree down in time. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Just as an octopus may have his den in some ocean cave, and come floating out a silent image of horror to attack a swimmer, so I picture such a spirit lurking in the dark of the house which he curses by his presence, and ready to float out upon all whom he can injure. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade imagines. Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together and see what we can do. I feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support today. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a tangled skein, you understand, and I am looking for a loose end. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
How are you, Watson?" said he, cordially. "I should never have known you under that moustache, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It may have been a comedy, or it may have been a tragedy. It cost one man his reason, it cost me a blood-letting, and it cost yet another man the penalties of the law. Yet there was certainly an element of comedy. Well, you shall judge for yourselves. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He has a gentle voice and a quiet manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because they are held in leash. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Is that Eduardo Lucas of Godolphin Street?" "Yes." "You will not see him." "Why not?" "He was murdered in his house last night." My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures that it was with a sense of exultation that I realized how completely I had astonished him. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large, intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen smile, and two keen gray eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad, gold-rimmed glasses. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The very existence of a world carries with it the proof of a world-maker, as the table guarantees the pre-existence of the carpenter. Granting -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Commonplace," said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If she were seventeen at the time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now
a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Look at you. Why is the only woman you ever cared about a world-class criminal - are you a masochist? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance anywhere. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That one word, my dear Watson, should have told me the whole story had I been the ideal reasoner which you are so fond of depicting. It was evidently a term of reproach."
-Sherlock Holmes- -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The sky was of the deepest blue, with a few white, fleecy clouds drifting lazily across it, and the air was filled with the low drone of insects or with a sudden sharper note as bee or bluefly shot past with its quivering, long-drawn hum, like an insect tuning-fork. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?" I asked in genuine wonder. "Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the theory of reincarnation. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri", the little girl continued. "I guess somebody else made the country in these parts. It's not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the trees. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The most common place crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or specific features from which deductions may be drawn -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. - Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Watson: When do we start?
Holmes: You are not coming.
Watson: Then you are not going. I give you my word of honour - and I never broke it in my life - that I will take a cab straight to the police station and give you away unless you let me share this adventure with you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instinct of beasts. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In spite of his capacity for concealing his emotions, I could easily see that Holmes was in a state of suppressed excitement, while I was myself tingling with that half-sporting, half-intellectual pleasure which I invariably experienced when I associated myself with him in his investigations. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Where's your warrant?" asked McGinty. "By Gar! a man might as well live in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the police. It's a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I reckon. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen-pheasant's life. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There was no use denying anything to a woman, for she would have her way. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours -- Arthur Conan Doyle
By my soul! I would rather have a dry death," quoth Sir Oliver. "Though, Mort Dieu! I have eaten so many fish that it were but justice that the fish should eat me. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, Watson,"
he arranged a number of bread-crumbs in this fashion
: : : : :
"and sometimes like this"
: . : . : . : .
"and occasionally like this"
. : . : . : . "Can you remember that?" "No, I cannot. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
By George!" cried the inspector. "How did you ever see that?"
Because I looked for it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exagerate one's own powers. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Jacket. It was this sketch-book, which was as dilapidated -- Arthur Conan Doyle
How wise and how merciful is that provision of nature by which his earthly anchor is usually loosened by many little imperceptible tugs, until his consciousness has drifted out of its untenable earthly harbor into the great sea beyond! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We can't do these things in the force, Mr. Holmes," said he. "No wonder you get results that are beyond us. But some of these days you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend in trouble." "For England, home and beauty - eh, Watson? Martyrs on the altar of our country. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Every fresh advance which we make only reveals a fresh ridge beyond. And yet we have surely made some appreciable progress. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE "GLORI A SCOTT -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We had strict injunctions, however, on no account to pass the falls of Reichenbach, which are about half-way up the hill, without making a small detour to see them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I've had ups in my life, and I've had downs, but I've learned not to cry over spilled milk. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is only goodness which gives extra... -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Use your powers! Go to the scene of the crime! See the people concerned! Leave no stone unturned! In all your career you have never had so great a chance of serving your country. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me. "If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy business -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His eyes kindled and a slight flush sprang into his thin cheeks. For an instant the veil had lifted upon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off with the treasure? How's that?"
"On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When we know everything about this earth, the romance and poetry will all have been wiped away from it. There is nothing so artistic as a haze. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My own seal." "Imitated." "My photograph." "Bought." "We were both in the photograph." "Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an indiscretion. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I think that I had better go, Holmes."
"Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
From the point of view of the criminal expert," said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "London has become a singularly uninteresting city since the death of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Let me see. What are my other shortcomings? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a link of it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I abhor the dull routine of existence. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Punishment has been slow in coming, but it has overtaken you at last. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Moriarty: ... everything I have to say has already crossed your mind. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."
"Then possibly my answer has crossed yours. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Did you ever hear of a congress of lawyers for simplifying the law and discouraging litigation? What -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In his singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in him. The -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE RETIRED COLOURMAN -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Horses: dangerous on both ends and crafty in the middle -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have asked myself if the best which can be done with virtue is to shut it within high walls as though it were some savage creature. If the good will lock themselves up, and if the wicked will still wander free, then alas for the world! Alleyne -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE GOLDEN PINCE-NEZ -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes' investigation. At first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position, but now he was overcome with admiration, and ready to follow without question wherever Holmes lead. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The husband was a teetotaller, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You're too late. She's my wife."
"No, she's your widow."
His revolver cracked, and I saw the blood spurt from the front of Woodley's waistcoat. He spun round with a scream and fell upon his back, his hideous red face turning suddenly to a dreadful mottled pallor. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Beating the dead animals in the dissecting room with a stick." "Beating them with a stick!" "Yes, to see whether bruises could be made after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes." "But he is not a medical student?" "No. I have no idea what he wants to do with his studies. But here -- Arthur Conan Doyle
if a man wants friends be must go among strangers. It's -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There lies the image of our past and of our future," cried Alleyne, as they rode on upon their way. "Now, which is better, to till God's earth, to have happy faces round one's knee, and to love and be loved, or to sit forever moaning over one's own soul, like a mother over a sick babe?" "I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance which was charged with malice. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
This case deserves to be a classic. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.' 'But -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The fantastic graces of Chivalry lay upon the surface of life,but beneath it was a half-savage population,fierce and animal,with little ruth or mercy. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?" said he. "Never. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Several incidents in my life have convinced me of spiritual interposition - of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves, which tries to help us where it can. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
[O]n general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To underestimate oneself is as much an exaggeration of one's powers than the other. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I must really apologize, Hopkins," said Sherlock Holmes. "I fear that the scrambled eggs are cold. However, you will enjoy the rest of your breakfast all the better, will you not, for the thought that you have brought your case to a triumphant conclusion. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through
a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You seem to have powers that are hardly human, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As he stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought by his own hand upon his enemies. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Steel True, Blade Straight *In 1955, Doyle's family sold Windlesham, which was turned into a hotel. The bodies of Conan Doyle and his wife, Jean, were moved to a grave at Minstead Churchyard, Hampshire. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and inadequate. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my views.
- Cyprian Overbeck Wells: A Literary Mosaic -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I was expecting a rather long visit to Bankruptcy Court at the time, and this interruption seemed almost providential. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
They knew each other very well
so well that they could sit now in that soothing silence which is the very highest development of companionship. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Though unmusical, German is the most expressive of all languages, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Oh! A mystery is it?' I cried, rubbing my hands. 'This is very piquant. I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. "The proper study of mankind is man" you know -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A great brain and a huge organization have been turned
to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the
triphammer
an absurd extravagance of energy
but the nut is very
effectually crushed all the same. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Really was the most tactless person upon earth, - a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
'It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival, until they were all ruddy and glowing. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact - of absolute undeniable fact - from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Bitterness is a paralytic.
Love is a much more serious motivator. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A strong wind sang sadly as it bent the trees in front of the Hall. A half moon shone through the dark, flying clouds on to the wild and empty moor. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A strange enigma is man -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. You -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Streams may spring from one source and yet some may be clear and some be foul. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Perchance you shall, fair sir," said Nigel, "for all that I have seen of you fills me with this desire to go further with you. It is in my mind that we might turn this thing to profit and to honour, for when Sir Robert has spoken to you, I am free to do with you as I will. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The devil's agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I shall never do that,' I answered; 'you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I had the Irish faculty of seeing some gleam of humor in every darkness. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No information could be got from the lady herself, who was temporarily insane from an acute attack of brain fever. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
At the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being besmirched by a blackmailer, and only I can stop a disastrous scandal. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
secured in a similar fashion, was a tall man in the last stage of emaciation, with several -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Well, well," said he, at last. "It is, of course, possible that a cunning man might change the tires of his bicycle in order to leave unfamiliar tracks. A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a man whom I should be proud to do business with. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of a game-cock above the door, Holmes gave a sudden groan, and clutched me by the shoulder to save himself from falling. He had had one of those violent strains of the ankle which leave a man helpless. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He [Professor Moriarty] is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE NAVAL TREATY -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The supreme gift of an artist is the knowledge of when to stop. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can get nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I can't get the end of it into my hand. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback," said he. "I am." "I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect." "Why?" "Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found. I clasped his hand in silence, and the die was cast. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Even the best of us are thrown off some- times. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
She entered with ungainly struggle like some huge awkward chicken, torn, squawking, out of its coop. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull us through. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Here at last there was a fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Where there is no imagination there is no horror. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Some of you rich men have to be taught that all the world cannot be bribed into condoning your offences. Sherlock Holmes, The Problem of Thor Bridge -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It would be a rare place for a gallop." "You would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their lives before now. You notice those bright green spots scattered thickly over it? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his sitting-room in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of The Times and smoking his before-breakfast pipe, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is quite a three-pipe problem. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Accounts are not quite settled between us," said she, with a passion that equaled my own. "I can love, and I can hate. You had your choice. You chose to spurn the first; now you must test the other. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Round-headed," he muttered. "Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There was a brisk northern wind, heavy and wet with the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned his face to it, fresh life and strength surging in his blood and bracing his limbs. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I say, Watson,' he whispered, 'would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?'
'Not in the least,' I answered in astonishment.
'Ah, that's lucky,' he said, and not another word would he utter that night. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I love and am loved by a better man than he. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Count Sylvius, "We give you best, Holmes. I believe you are the devil himself."
"Not far from him, at any rate," Holmes answered witha polite smile. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Let us see if there is justice upon
the earth, or if we are ruled by chance -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Honesty and Poetry are the same thing -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual - that's to say, you handled it fairly well. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo Sapiens! Homo idioticus! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is the sweetest spring within the memory of man. So green, so mild, so beautiful! Ah, what a contrast between nature without and my own soul so torn with doubt and terror! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and i am in my own proper atmosphere. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Yet birth, and lust, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilization and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
a man may be very dogmatic in his opposition to dogma. Such -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Hot hate is twin brother to hot love. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is not the cold which makes me shiver -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The sun had long set, but one blood-red gash like an open wound lay low in the distant west. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A change of work is the best rest. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Violence recoils on the violent. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week."
"Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And meanwhile take my assurance that the clouds are lifting and that I have every hope that the light of truth is breaking through -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Come at once if convenient- if inconvenient come all the same.
- S. H. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A dead fish can float with the stream, but it takes a man to swim against it." What -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.
Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If you eliminate all other possibilities, whatever remains must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That seems to show that somebody knows more than we do upon the moor -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.
[Sherlock Holmes, on Mrs. Hudson's cooking.] -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My sister and I, you will recollect, were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And so reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet, without a harshness which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy - those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Wolves or watch-dogs, it was hard to say from which the sheep had most to fear. The -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED CIRCLE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is not that I think or believe, but that I know. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H. It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We can pass the eight Dreadnoughts, if we are sure of the eight Shackleton's. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Because my brother Mycroft possesses it in a larger degree than I do. This was news to me indeed. If there were another man with such singular powers in England, how was it that neither police nor public had heard of him? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Have from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask. This is indeed a mystery, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What a lovely thing a rose is! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He had never seen a woman doctor before, and his whole conservative soul rose up in revolt at the idea. He could not recall any biblical injunction that the man should remain ever the doctor and the woman the nurse, and yet he felt as if a blasphemy had been committed. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
"I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my friend. "On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences." -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has everything to do with it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes, you have an answer to everything -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I carry my own church about under my own hat," said I. "Bricks and mortar won't make a staircase to heaven. I believe with your Master that the human heart is the best temple. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of course, the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The charlatan is always the pioneer. From the astrologer came the astronomer, from the alchemist the chemist, from the mesmerist the experimental psychologist. The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is all in the way of professional experience.
- Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You may have noticed how extremes call to each other, the spiritual to the animal, the caveman to the angel. You never saw a worse case than this. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In your own case, from all that you have told me, it seems obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for deduction are due to your own systematic training."
-John. Watson- -- Arthur Conan Doyle
One other thing, Lestrade," he added, turning round at the door: "'Rache,' is the German for 'revenge;' so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel." With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is all very well to say that a man is clever, but the reader wants to see examples of it ... -- Arthur Conan Doyle
As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.
- Watson. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I was forced to agree. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so often adorned.
- Sherlock Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am lost without my Boswell.
[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.] -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang from his chair. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Speaking professionally, it was admirably done."
-John H. Watson-
-The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes- -- Arthur Conan Doyle
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Pinner. "'Thank you very much,' said he; 'I fear that I underrated the difficulty of the task. This list will be of very material assistance to me.' "'It took some time,' said I. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We who claim toleration should be the first to extend it to others. I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Things are always easier when imagination ceases and action begins -- Arthur Conan Doyle
the right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Brothers are a blessing for one thing. There is no possibility of any young lady getting unreasonably conceited if she be endowed with them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A fool takes in everything he comes across, so that there is no room for anything useful to find a place, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We surely know by some nameless instinct more about our futures than we think we know. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity ... is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted, - not the best of them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
With the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt intimation that I was ready. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE THREE GARRIDEBS -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I should have more faith. I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE POWER OF detaching his mind at will. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I thrilled now with a keener zest than I had ever enjoyed when we were the defenders of the law instead of its defiers. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they appear for the most part to dislike me.
The Man from Archangel -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In any case, Watson, you have turned out to be a prize flat-mate. I couldn't have asked for better. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August - the most terrible August in the history of the world. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell. Picture to yourself the unilateral development - the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Indeed!" I murmured. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I consider that a man's brain is originally like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge that might be useful to him gets crowded out. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
All knowledge comes useful to the detective," remarked Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
... but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes," I cried, "this is impossible." "Admirable!" he said. "A most illuminating remark. It IS impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong. Yet you saw for yourself. Can you suggest any fallacy? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I ejaculated after I had twice read over the extraordinary announcement. Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I know you, you scoundrel! I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler." My friend smiled. "Holmes, the busybody!" His smile broadened. "Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!" Holmes chuckled heartily. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Would you think me impertinent if I were to put your theories to a more severe test?" "On the contrary," he answered, "it would prevent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines. Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To begin at the beginning. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. Eglow, Eglonitz - here we are, Egria. It -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
an unbeliever may be as bigoted as any of the orthodox, and -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE REIGATE PUZZLE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Now is rather a questionable one. And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Zambo, who is a black Hercules, as willing as any horse, and about as intelligent. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The whole force of the State is at your back if you should need it.
I'm afraid that all the queen's horses and all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The game is afoot. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Philosophy. - Nil. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND STAIN -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without delay. Its finder has carried it off therefore to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I have no such aid. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Busybody Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Violence is sometimes a duty. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. From His Last Bow -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE CREEPING MAN -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And a singularly consistent investigation you have made, my dear Watson," said he. "I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all." "I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in explaining. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London, and, finally, maritime London -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes In -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing like first-hand evidence. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When will you be pleased to dine, Mr. Holmes?' Mrs. Hudson asked. 'Seven-thirty, the day after to-morrow' said he. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." "But the Solar System!" I protested. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake.
- Watson -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That hurts my pride, Watson. It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now..."
-Sherlock Holmes-
-The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Five Orange Pips- -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Who are you, then?" "My name is Sherlock Holmes." "Good Lord!" "You have heard of me, I see. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but the percentages remain constant -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Here is my lens. You know my methods. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
To a great mind, nothing is little. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Mr. Sherlock Holmes ... was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished. In -- Arthur Conan Doyle
And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I believe you are a wizard, Mr. Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes."
Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the cabman's reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Well, Mr. Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?" "To remember it
to docket it. We may come on something later which will bear upon it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have hardly had time to think over all that you have told me. It's a big thing for a man to have to understand and to decide at one sitting. I should like to have a quiet hour by myself to make up my mind. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
faces. "Perhaps I had best -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is hardly fair to blame America for the state of San Francisco, for its population is cosmopolitan and its seaport attracts the floating vice of the Pacific; but be the cause what it may, there is much room for spiritual betterment. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Who knows, Watson? Woman's heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
For once you have fallen low. Let us see in the future how high you can rise. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared this same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell. ( ... ) -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
One night - it was in June, '89 - there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn, and glances at the clock. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?'
'No, I have not.'
'Well, well, such is fame! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was a net from which it seemed to me, a few hours ago, that there was no possible escape. But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. He wished to improve that which was already perfect ... and so he ruined all. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
That head of yours should be for use as well as
ornament. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
He foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LADY FRANCES CARFAX -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Gone to the nearest public-house. That is the centre of country gossip. They would have told you every name, from the master to the scullery-maid. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light, - sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered. "That's -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I was not surprised when Holmes suggested that I should take my revolver with me. He had himself picked up the loaded hunting-crop, which was his favourite weapon. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic client. "If your Majesty would condescend to state your case," he remarked, "I should be better able to advise you." The man sprang from -- Arthur Conan Doyle
"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur." -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
the Dutchmen had died in 1816. Slagter's -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Said no more but, calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty £1,000 notes. When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility which it entailed -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt recognition. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE FINAL PROBLEM -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
you know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick and if I show too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all." -Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a filed for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,' said he [Holmes], 'but it is a common lot this morning. Mrs Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable, I have only to consider the question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress upon this, when a lady is in most desperate need of his help? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My dear fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more.
- Holmes, to Watson. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies."
"You are right," said Holmes demurely: "you do find it very hard to tackle the facts. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I never remember feeling tired by work. though idleness exhausts me completely. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
conscience swelled nightly -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Will, we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might give the alarm. If you could send her into the cellar on some errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate matters immensely." "I -- Arthur Conan Doyle
A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My mind is like a crowded box-room with packets of all sorts stowed away therein - so many that I may well have but a vague perception of what was there. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was my first visit to the scene of the crime
a high, dingy, narrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which gave it birth. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I believe you are a man of your word, and a white man, and I'll tell you the whole story. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
However, wretch as he was, he was still living under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that you will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You know my methods. Apply them. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am an Irishman, sir." "Irish Irish?" "Yes, sir. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The conduct of the criminal investigation has been left in the experienced hands of Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is following up the clues with his accustomed energy and sagacity. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I wanted to end the world, but I'll settle for ending yours. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The authorities are excellent at amassing facts, though they do not always use them to advantage. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who's half a man,
Or the man who's half a boy. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No mention of that local hunt, Watson," said Holmes with a mischievous smile, "but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Man or woman?" I asked. "Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would have come. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It might have driven me mad; but I was always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on and bided my time. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was worth a wound - it was worth many wounds - to know the depth of loyalty and love that lay behind that cold mask. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
No violence, gentlemen - no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture! -- Arthur Conan Doyle
a universe implies the existence of a universe maker, and -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You hid to see all that?" he cried. "It seems to me that you knows a deal more than you should." Holmes laughed and threw his card across -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The Diogenes Club is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of the queerest men. He's always there from quarter to five to twenty to eight. It's six now, so if you care for a stroll this beautiful evening I shall be very happy to introduce you to two curiosities. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING DETECTIVE -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Never theorize before you have data.Invariably you end up twisting facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.
-Sherlock holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If the fresh facts come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The fair sex is your department. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You see, but you do not observe. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Anything else?" "He was a man of untidy habits - very untidy and careless. He was left with -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That's what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am killed them quick, but they are killing me slow. [Jim Browner in 'The Adventure of the Cardboard Box'] -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal.
Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Now, the Oracles are finicky and unpredictable -- Arthur Conan Doyle
This room is not well adapted as a cell, and Mr. Patrick Cairns occupies too large a portion of our carpet. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I had," said he, "come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
walking calendar of crime, -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Three quiet days. This hell fiend is like a cat with a mouse. She lets me loose only to pounce upon me again. I am never so frightened as when every thing is still. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Oh how I've missed you, Holmes. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Holy Men! Holy Cabbages! Holy Bean Pods! What do they do but live and suck in sustenance and grow fat? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Men scorn what they don't understand". -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The cunning devil has told her every unsavoury public scandal of his past life, but always in such a way as to make himself out to be an innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version and will listen to no other. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We give you best, Holmes. I believe you are the devil himself. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
But how could you guess what the motive was? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE RESIDENT PATIENT -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL -- Arthur Conan Doyle
nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
What one man can invent, another can discover. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The mighty voice of Canada will ever call to me. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers? -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I guess you're the same in all places, shoving your advice in when nobody asks for it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My dear Watson, you were born to be a man of action. Your instinct is always to do something energetic. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES -- Arthur Conan Doyle
It's true that you set us on the right track; but you'll own now that it was more by good luck than good guidance. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
They're dangerous at both ends ... and crafty in the middle. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Le mauvais gout mene au crime.' The -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity ... -- Arthur Conan Doyle
But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Watson,' said he, 'if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
The note was undated, and without either signature or address. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I'm not a psychopath, I'm a fully functioning sociopath. Do your research. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Well," said I, "you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness." "Maybe the two things go together. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
I am inclined to think
" said I. "I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. "Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a little trying at times. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
With a keen eye for details, on truth prevails. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
- I have come for advice.
- That is easily got.
- And help.
- That is not always so easy.
#The Five Orange Pips -- Arthur Conan Doyle
death struggle had been a grievous one. On -- Arthur Conan Doyle
You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist out of stories. -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Quite simple, my dear Watson -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why -- Arthur Conan Doyle
Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper. ~ Sherlock Holmes -- Arthur Conan Doyle
So swift, silent and furtive were his movements like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defense. -- Arthur Conan Doyle