To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.

I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.

Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.

I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.

Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity... is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.

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.

Even the best of us are thrown off some- times.