Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience.

Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind." "Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this." I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself. "Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea." "The board-schools." "Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.

There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.

Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil