It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.

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.

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.

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.

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

When you have eliminated the impossible, what is left, no matter how unlikely, is the truth.

Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.