Quotes About Insight

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature

It is easy to be wise after the event.

Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see.

You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.

I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but is is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.

The most serious point in the case is the disposition of the child. What on earth has that to do with it? I ejaculated. My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining insight as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

From a drop of water," said the writer, "a logical man could understand oceans and waterfalls without having ever seen or heard of them.

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.

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

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

The ideal reasoner would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also the results which would follow from it.

It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it.

but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all. - Sherlock Holmes

Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you.

Holmes, you have an answer to everything

Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses.

Nothing is little to a great mind.

How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.

Give me your details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent expert opinion.

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

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.

Who knows, Watson? Woman's heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male.

We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.