-
His love of danger, his intense appreciation of the drama of an adventure – all the more intense for being held tightly in – his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, made him a wonderful companion at such hours.
-
Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools.
-
Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.
-
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.
-
There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.
-
There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.
-
The future was with Fate. The present was our own.
-
The most dangerous condition for a man or a nation is when his intellectual side is more developed than his spiritual. Is that not exactly the condition of the world today?
-
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.
-
One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell. Picture to yourself the unilateral development - the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!
-
It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
-
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.
-
I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.
-
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when Holmes became a specialist in crime.
-
The fair sex is your department.
-
I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.
-
The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.
-
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.
-
Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.
-
I carry my own church about under my own hat," said I. "Bricks and mortar won't make a staircase to heaven. I believe with your Master that the human heart is the best temple.
-
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
-
The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time.
-
Hot hate is twin brother to hot love.
-
The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.