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He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.
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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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My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!
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It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?
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There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.
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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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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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The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.
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How sweet the morning air is! ...How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!
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I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?
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I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.
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A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
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An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement . . .
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The grand thing is to be able to reason backwards.
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Violence recoils on the violent.
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We can't command our love, but we can our actions.
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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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Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.
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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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The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
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I am engaged in answering that Italian buffoon, Mazotti, whose views upon the larval development of the tropical termites have excited my derision and contempt . . .
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Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
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Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.
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That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.