The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.

It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.

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

Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.