Arthur Conan Doyle - Crime Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

View all Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity…is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle
As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

Arthur Conan Doyle
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience.

Arthur Conan Doyle
I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.

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

Arthur Conan Doyle
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
Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.

Arthur Conan Doyle
The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.

Arthur Conan Doyle
The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

Arthur Conan Doyle
[Professor Moriarty] is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.

Arthur Conan Doyle
It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil

Arthur Conan Doyle
No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.

Arthur Conan Doyle