Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

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

It isn't true that the laws of nature have been capriciously disturbed; that snakes have talked; that women have been turned into salt; that rods have brought water out of rocks.

At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.

The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.

The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.

if i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.

I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety.

Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.

You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.

My dear Watson," said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.

I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those outré and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.

Exactly. She does not shine as a wife even in her own account of what occurred. I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind, as you are aware, Watson, but my experience of life has taught me that there are few wives having any regard for their husbands who would let any man's spoken word stand between them and that husband's dead body. Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.

It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously . . .

We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.

The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.

That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.

You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" It was worth a wound -- it was worth many wounds -- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law.

What a creature he was! Never have I felt such a horse between my knees. His great haunches gathered under him with every stride, and he shot forward ever faster and faster, stretched like a greyhound, while the windbeat in my face and whistled past my ears.

Living, as I do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between?

You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?" "No, indeed!" "You'll be interested to hear that I'm engaged." "My dear fellow! I congrat-" "To Milverton's housemaid." "My dear Holmes!" "I wanted information, Watson.

There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.

Critics kind never mind! Critics flatter no matter! Critics blame all the same! Do your best damn the rest!

Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.

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.

A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.

We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous.

Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.

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.

The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing," mused the Inspector, "Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times... What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! How's that?" "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside," said Holmes.

Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know.

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

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

Amberley excelled at chess - a mark, Watson, of a scheming mind.

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Several incidents in my life have convinced me of spiritual interposition - of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves, which tries to help us where it can.