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It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I had ... come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?" "Yes, he did." "When did he say this?" "When he left me." "Did he say anything more?" "He mentioned his name." Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. "Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?" “His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle