Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
-
What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts.
-
A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.
-
Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
-
I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.
-
Now, Watson,” said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?” “If I can be of use.” “Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.
-
His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star.
-
Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.
-
It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously . . .
-
I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual - that's to say, you handled it fairly well.
-
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.
-
So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o'clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson in the other chair which he has so often adorned.
-
There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.
-
It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.
-
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
-
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.
-
Life, my dear Watson, is infinitely stranger than fiction; stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We could not conceive the things that are merely commonplace to existence. If we could hover over this great city, remove the roofs, and peep in at the things going on, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions flat, stale and unprofitable.
-
I had ... come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.
-
Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies.
-
Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.
-
The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without delay. Its finder has carried it off therefore to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose.
-
The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.
-
Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters.
-
Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.
-
A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.