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"Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe" "Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" Asked Holmes, with some asperity. "To the man of precised, scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly." "Then had you not better consult him?" "I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently--" "Just a little," said Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
On general principles, it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Hot hate is twin brother to hot love.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff — By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Brothers are a blessing for one thing. There is no possibility of any young lady getting unreasonably conceited if she be endowed with them.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It’s every man’s business to see justice done.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.
Arthur Conan Doyle