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.

Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes.

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital.

I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.

I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right.

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

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.