It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.

I had ... come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.

To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.

He [Professor Moriarty] is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order.

I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.

Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.