No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

My uncle, Mr. Stephen Maple, had been at the same time the most successful and the least respectable of our family, so that we hardly knew whether to take credit for his wealth or to feel ashamed of his position.

Life, my dear Watson, is infinitely stranger than fiction; stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We could not conceive the things that are merely commonplace to existence. If we could hover over this great city, remove the roofs, and peep in at the things going on, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions flat, stale and unprofitable.

Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies.

There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.

It is horrible, yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.