Quotes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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

Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.

The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.

I followed you.' I saw no one.' That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.

Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire. A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

Everything comes in circles. [...] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.

I cannot live without brainwork. 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 duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?

I say, Watson,' he whispered, 'would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?' 'Not in the least,' I answered in astonishment. 'Ah, that's lucky,' he said, and not another word would he utter that night.

By George! cried the inspector. How did you ever see that? Because I looked for it.

I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.

It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.

There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.

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

The future was with Fate. The present was our own. ~ The Poison Belt

My friend's wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair. You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake say that you're not hurt! It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay beyond that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.

There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.

So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a link of it.

Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.

So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.

It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?