Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details.

A fine horse or a beautiful woman, I cannot look at them unmoved, even now when seventy winters have chilled my blood.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing... My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System.

I have taken to living by my wits.

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

"I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation."