Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
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There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.
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The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
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Really, Watson, you excel yourself," said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. "I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.
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A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the theory of reincarnation.
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All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.
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It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?
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When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.
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Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.
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Well, sir, let us do what we can to curtail this visit, which can hardly be agreeable to you, and is inexpressibly irksome to me.
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I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.
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Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.
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It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.
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My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!
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He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone.
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What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.
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Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.
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I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.
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The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.
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You know how easily and suddenly these things happen, beginning in playful teasing and ending in something a little warmer than friendship. You squeeze the slender arm which is passed through yours, you venture to take the little gloved hand, you say good night at absurd length in the shadow of the door. It is innocent and very interesting, love trying his wings in a first little flutter.
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Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
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That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.
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It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.
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Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.