Quotes from Arthur Conan Doyle

Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient come all the same.

Es un craso error teorizar antes de tener datos. Inconscientemente, uno empieza a moldear los hechos para que se ajusten a las teorías, en lugar de ajustar las teorías a los hechos.

we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a mediaeval conception.

It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.

and believe me to be, my dear fellow, Very sincerely yours, Sherlock Holmes

To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.' 'The dog did nothing in the night-time.' 'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.

No invisibles, sino inadvertidas, Watson. No sabía usted dónde mirar y por eso se perdió todo lo importante.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others.

nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person

I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye.

and if I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavoured to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.

It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.

Esto sí es un misterio. ¿Qué cree que significa? —Aún no dispongo de esos datos. Es un error capital teorizar antes de disponer de información. Sin darse cuenta, uno empieza a deformar los hechos para que se ajusten a las teorías, en lugar de ajustar las teorías a los hechos.

Omne ignotum pro magnifico17

For some reason altogether beyond our conception - and man may have been a mere accident, a by-product evolved in the process. It is as if the scum upon the surface of the ocean imagined that the ocean was created in order to produce and sustain it or a mouse in a cathedral thought that the building was its own proper ordained residence.

The cunning devil has told her every unsavoury public scandal of his past life, but always in such a way as to make himself out to be an innocent martyr. She absolutely accepts his version and will listen to no other.

But our good humour was restored when we saw Lord John Roxton waiting for us upon the platform, his tall, thin figure clad in a yellow tweed shooting-suit. His keen face, with those unforgettable eyes, so fierce and yet so humorous, flushed with pleasure at the sight of us. His ruddy hair was shot with grey, and the furrows upon his brow had been cut a little deeper by Time's chisel, but in all else he was the Lord John who had been our good comrade in the past.

I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country.

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. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.

Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.

Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.

Frattanto, possiamo ringraziare la nostra buona stella che, per qualche ora, ci ha sottratto alla insopportabile fatica dell'ozio.»

Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.

considero que el cerebro de cada cual es como una pequeña pieza vacía que vamos amueblando con elementos de nuestra elección. Un necio echa mano de cuanto encuentra a su paso, de modo que el conocimiento que pudiera serle útil, o no encuentra cabida o, en el mejor de los casos, se halla tan revuelto con las demás cosas que resulta difícil dar con él.