Quotes from Arthur Conan Doyle

You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.

No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair.

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

The whole force of the State is at your back if you should need it. I'm afraid that all the queen's horses and all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter.

It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.

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

It is the small men and not the great who hold their noses in the air.

I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.

If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination.

A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the theory of reincarnation.

I have wrought my simple plan If I give one hour of joy To the boy who's half a man, Or the man who's half a boy.

I love and am loved by a better man than he.

Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.

Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

How sweet the morning air is! ...How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

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

I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come.

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

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

It is with nations as it is with individuals. A book of history is a book of sermons.

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.