Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.
It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.
Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.
I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.
Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.
I'm not a psychopath, I'm a fully functioning sociopath. Do your research.
Streams may spring from one source, and yet some be clear and some be foul.
Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.
No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!
There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.
It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.
Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions.
Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.
As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.
I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake. - Watson
I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.
There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.
Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.
There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.
The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.
It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?
He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.
To underestimate oneself is as much an exaggeration of one's powers than the other.
Ex-Professor Moriarty of mathematical celebrity... is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.
We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.
I followed you.' I saw no one.' That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.
It is with nations as it is with individuals. A book of history is a book of sermons.
A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the theory of reincarnation.
We surely know by some nameless instinct more about our futures than we think we know.
Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.
Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.
You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.
The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.
I am inclined to think -' said I. `I should do so,' Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.
The more outré and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined.
Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.
For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.
The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity . . .
That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.
The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.
It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.
The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.
He foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.