"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 … - Arthur Conan Doyle

The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.

You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.

...I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-colored houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.