Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places. But his papers were my great crux. He had a horror of destroying documents, especially those which were connected with his past cases, and yet it was only once in every year or two that he would muster energy to docket and arrange them; for, as I have mentioned somewhere in these incoherent memoirs, the outbursts of passionate energy when he performed the remarkable feats with which his name is associated were followed by reactions of lethargy during which he would lie about with his violin and his books, hardly moving save from the sofa to the table. Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner. One winter's night, as we sat together by the fire, I ventured to suggest to him that, as he had finished pasting extracts into his common-place book, he might employ the next two hours in making our room a little more habitable. He could not deny the justice of my request, so with a rather rueful face he went off to his bedroom, from which he returned presently pulling a large tin box behind him. This he placed in the middle of the floor and, squatting down upon a stool in front of it, he threw back the lid. I could see that it was already a third full of bundles of paper tied up with red tape into separate packages.

But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.

Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools.

A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may have treated her.

If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.

"It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.

There is nothing new under the sun. It has been done before.

"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.

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.

I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who’s half a man,
Or the man who’s half a boy.

"Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."

No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!

if i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.