Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
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The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.
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I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.
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Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.
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I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.
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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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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.
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The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.
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It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
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Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.
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It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy.
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There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.
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I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.
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It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?
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So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.
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I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
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You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound, and that! - and that! - and that! - and that!
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The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.
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Even the best of us are thrown off some- times.
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The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.
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As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world.
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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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Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.
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Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.
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Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.