Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Brain, character, soul — only as one sees more of life does one understand how distinct is each.

The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.

The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him: but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting- room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.

"The division seems rather unfair," I remarked. "You have done
all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets
the credit, pray what remains for you?"
"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the
cocaine-bottle." And he stretched his long white hand up for
it.

You see, but you do not observe.

One must wait till it comes.

One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it.
-Sherlock Holmes

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

He was too absurd to make me angry. Indeed, it was a waste of energy, for if you were going to be angry with this man you would be angry all the time.

Never theorize before you have data.Invariably you end up twisting facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.
-Sherlock holmes

It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it.

There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man.