Quotes About Observation

To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. When I say, therefore, that Mycroft has better powers of observation than I, you may take it that I am speaking the exact and literal truth.

No mention of that local hunt, Watson, said Holmes with a mischievous smile, but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed.

How long is this to last? asked the inspector finally. And what is it we are watching for? I have no more notion than you how long it is to last, Holmes answered with some asperity. If criminals would always schedule their movements like railway trains, it would certainly be more convenient for all of us.

Well, I'm a bacteriologist, you know. I live in a nine-hundred-diameter microscope. I can hardly claim to take serious notice of anything that I can see with my naked eye.

El mundo esta lleno de cosas evidentes en las que nadie se fija ni por casualidad

I have seen too much not to know that the impressions of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.

Science of Deduction

Let me run over the principal steps. We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.

It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson, said he. A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment.

No se fíe nunca de las impresiones generales, amigo mío, y concéntrese en los detalles.»

Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for.

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

I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes.

Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all." "I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in explaining.

It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.

beating the dead animals in the dissecting room with a stick." "Beating them with a stick!" "Yes, to see whether bruises could be made after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes." "But he is not a medical student?" "No. I have no idea what he wants to do with his studies. But here

You then went to the vicarage, waited outside it for some time, and finally returned to your cottage." "How do you know that?" "I followed you." "I saw no one." "That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.

you hid to see all that?" he cried. "It seems to me that you knows a deal more than you should." Holmes laughed and threw his card across

Round-headed, he muttered. Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I presume?

Man or woman?" I asked. "Oh, man, of course. No woman would ever send a reply-paid telegram. She would have come.

It's the Baker Street division of the detective police force... There's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out of a dozen of the force,' Holmes remarked. 'The mere sight of an official-looking person seals men's lips. These youngsters, however, go everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all they want is organization.

You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case." "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he answered, laughing.

Cuando un hecho parece contradecir un largo cortejo de deducciones resulta de una manera invariable capaz de ser interpretado de diferente manera.