“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
― 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
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“You see, but you do not observe.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
― 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.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“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.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”
― 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
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“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.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said he.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“The game is afoot.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“To a great mind, nothing is little,’ remarked Holmes, sententiously.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
― 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
“There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi stimul ac nummos contemplar in arca.
(The public hiss at me, but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strong-box.)”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“Dr. Watson’s summary list of Sherlock Holmes’s strengths and weaknesses:
“1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.’
That’s a rather broad idea,’ I remarked.
One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,’ he answered.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“What one man can invent, another can discover.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”
It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“What a lovely thing a rose is!”
He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“I wanted to end the world, but I’ll settle for ending yours.”
― 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
“From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on hers. When we parted she was a free woman, but I could never again be a free man.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
“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.”
― Arthur Conan
“Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,