It is with nations as it is with individuals. A book of history is a book of sermons.

I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.

Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.

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.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

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.