Arthur Conan Doyle - Holmes Quotes

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And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before.

Arthur Conan Doyle
On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

Arthur Conan Doyle
"But the Solar System!" I protested. "What the deuce is it to me?" [Sherlock Holmes] interrupted impatiently: "You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me."

Arthur Conan Doyle
"I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies." "You are right," said Holmes demurely; "you do find it very hard to tackle the facts."

Arthur Conan Doyle
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.

Arthur Conan Doyle
One forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human nature is weak. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.

Arthur Conan Doyle
It is all in the way of professional experience. - Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle
As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world. - Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained.

Arthur Conan Doyle
"... the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime." "The dog did nothing in the nighttime." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle
"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur."

Arthur Conan Doyle
I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.

Arthur Conan Doyle
"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different."

Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.

Arthur Conan Doyle
I suppose I shall have to compound a felony, as usual. - Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle
If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one,

Arthur Conan Doyle
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Ross: Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Ross: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Holmes: That was the curious incident.

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

Arthur Conan Doyle
I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.

Arthur Conan Doyle
I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake. - Watson

Arthur Conan Doyle
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.

Arthur Conan Doyle
To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.

Arthur Conan Doyle
What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Now, Watson, said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. You'll come with me, won't you? If I can be of use. Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.

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
Holmes," I cried, "this is impossible." "Admirable!" he said. "A most illuminating remark. It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong."

Arthur Conan Doyle