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A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Living, as I do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between?
Arthur Conan Doyle
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"I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation."
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing," mused the Inspector, "Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times... What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! How's that?" "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside," said Holmes.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity... is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity . . .
Arthur Conan Doyle -
There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo Sapiens! Homo idioticus!
Arthur Conan Doyle -
There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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When you have eliminated the impossible, what is left, no matter how unlikely, is the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement . . .
Arthur Conan Doyle -
I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.
Arthur Conan Doyle -
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle