Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
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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.
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You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.
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Violence is sometimes a duty.
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There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.
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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.
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Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?
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The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.
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Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.
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Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.
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I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.
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It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?
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There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
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What a lovely thing a rose is!
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It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
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My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law.
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Brothers are a blessing for one thing. There is no possibility of any young lady getting unreasonably conceited if she be endowed with them.
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We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands.
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If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.
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For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.
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It is the sweetest spring within the memory of man. So green, so mild, so beautiful! Ah, what a contrast between nature without and my own soul so torn with doubt and terror!
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We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.
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I followed you.' I saw no one.' That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.
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And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.
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For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.