Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes - Page 2

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

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.

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

Before we begin to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.

Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs.

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.

Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.Sherlock Holmes

Dark nights are unpleasant," "Yes, for strangers to travel,""The clouds are heavy.""Yes, a storm is approaching.

Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?''What, indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored, you found yourself studying cases without thought of a fee?''For my education, Holmes.''Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.

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.

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that, and further inquiries out of the question.

My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.”—Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Oh how I've missed you, Holmes.

She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good.

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.

How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

Art in the blood is liable to take the strongest forms

Well,' said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London, 'it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I gained?''Experience,' said Holmes, laughing. 'Indirectly it may be of value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.

It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.

[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.

What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.

My correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?

Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "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's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in soutern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison?

...Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe--""Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" Asked Holmes, with some asperity."To the man of precised, scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly.""Then had you not better consult him?""I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently--""Just a little," said Holmes.

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.

My mind," he said, "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. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.

I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake.- Watson

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.

It is a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it.

We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

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.

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.

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

I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart.

The future was with Fate. The present was our own.~ The Poison Belt

I think that I had better go, Holmes.""Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.

That's rather a broad idea," I remarked. "One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature," he answered.

(...) My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built.

You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”“You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right.

The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

My job is to know what other people do not know.

In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

‎A change of work is the best rest.

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.

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the one stands for nothing, and the other for literature. From that day onwards you may return to your crudities, but at least you do so with some standard of comparison in your mind. You can never be the same as you were before. Then gradually the good thing becomes more dear to you; it builds itself up with your growing mind; it becomes a part of your better self, and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past.

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.

I consider that a man's brain originally is 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 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. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. 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.

The charlatan is always the pioneer... The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow.

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

Some believe what separates men from animals is our ability to reason. Others say it’s language or romantic love, or opposable thumbs. Living here in this lost world, I’ve come to believe it is more than our biology. What truly makes us human is our unending search, our abiding desire for immortality.

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.