Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.
No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
When you have eliminated the impossible, what is left, no matter how unlikely, is the truth.
When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a link of it.
I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it.
When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?
It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.
I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind." "Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.
I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his
It is horrible, yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.
I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?
It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.
Holy Men! Holy Cabbages! Holy Bean Pods! What do they do but live and suck in sustenance and grow fat?
It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously . . .
I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.
...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.
When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.
There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.
This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.
The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair.
Critics kind never mind! Critics flatter no matter! Critics blame all the same! Do your best damn the rest!
The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished.
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.
So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action.
I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.
I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.
There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.
A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony.
if i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
Great sorrow or great joy should bring intense hunger--not abstinence from food, as our novelists will have it.
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.
The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.