Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

365 Sourced Quotes

And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.

Arthur Conan Doyle
"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
I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain. Results without causes are much more impressive.

Arthur Conan Doyle
To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

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
The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.

Arthur Conan Doyle
I can tell you that it is no game for children, and I will confess that, in spite of my nine campaigns, I felt myself turn pale when the first ball flashed past me.

Arthur Conan Doyle
But it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.

Arthur Conan Doyle
To Sherlock Holmes she [Irene Adler] is always the woman.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?

Arthur Conan Doyle
Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull us through.

Arthur Conan Doyle
When a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.

Arthur Conan Doyle
When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper.
Sherlock Holmes speaking

Arthur Conan Doyle
If the man who observes the myriad stars, and considers that they and their innumerable satellites move in their serene dignity through the heavens, each swinging clear of the other's orbit-if, I say, the man who sees this cannot realise the Creator's attributes without the help of the book of Job, then his view of things is beyond my understanding.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

Arthur Conan Doyle
So swift, silent and furtive were his movements like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defense. -Dr. Watson, The Sign of the Four

Arthur Conan Doyle
The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.

Arthur Conan Doyle