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We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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?
Arthur Conan Doyle -
But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Violence is sometimes a duty.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Even the best of us are thrown off some- times.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
We can't command our love, but we can our actions.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with sympathy – those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Why should people ever take credit for charity when they must know that they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas in any other fashion?
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
If the fresh facts come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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It is horrible, yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?
Arthur Conan Doyle