Quotes from Arthur Conan Doyle

From a drop of water, said the writer, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.

I abhour the dull routine of existence - Sherlock Holmes

I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.

I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence.

I must thank you,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases.

The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.

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

It's stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy. When I tell my own story I have no such aid.

There are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman. [Sherlock Holmes, on Mrs. Hudson's cooking.]

Well, and there is the end of our little drama, I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective. He gave a most dismal groan.

My sympathies and my love went out to her, even as my hand had in the garden. I felt that years of the conventionalities of life could not teach me to know her sweet, brave nature as had this one day of strange experiences. Yet there were two thoughts which sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time. Worst still, she was rich.

The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.

Yes, there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe : 'Schade, daß die Natur nur einen Menschen aus dir schuf; Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.'

Some people without possesing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it

No ghosts need apply. - Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

There's many a man who never tells his adventures, for he can't hope to be believed.

Is he not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?

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

And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman.

He has a gentle voice and a quiet manner, but behind his twinkling blue eyes there lurks a capacity for furious wrath and implacable resolution, the more dangerous because they are held in leash.

It is that the chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.