SundaySep 20, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
There comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence.
When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime you should dwell.
There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
'I can see nothing,' said I, handing it back to my friend. 'On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.'
It is quite a three-pipe problem.
Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot.
The fair sex is your department.
'I don't admit that a fresh illustration is an explanation,' said I with some asperity. 'Bravo, Watson! A very dignified and logical remonstrance.' Dr. Watson, speaking with Sherlock Holmes.
You mentioned your name as if I should recognise it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a Freemason and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatsoever about you.
One forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human nature is weak. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.
All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.
You know my method, Watson. It is founded on the observances of trifles.
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.
My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.
From a drop of water a logician could predict an Atlantic or a Niagara.
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes,who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table.
'It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.
What one man can invent another can discover. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect.
I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes.
I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.
Steel True, Blade Straight *In 1955, Doyle's family sold Windlesham, which was turned into a hotel. The bodies of Conan Doyle and his wife, Jean, were moved to a grave at Minstead Churchyard, Hampshire.
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!
It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital ....
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
If the fresh facts come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
'Excellent!' I [Watson] cried. 'Elementary.' said he [Holmes]. Watson talking to Sherlock Holmes in The Crooked Man
The bow was made in England: Of true wood, of yew wood. The wood of English bows.
The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
'Data Data Data!' he cried impatiently. 'I can't make bricks without clay.' Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
How dangerous it is to reason from insufficient data.
'... the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.' 'The dog did nothing in the nighttime.' 'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.
You will, I am sure, agree with me that ... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.
A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
Excellent! he (Dr. Watson) cried. Elementary, said he (Holmes).
The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous and terse, but limited.
You know my methods. Apply them.
Men die of the diseases which they have studied most...It's as if the morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer.
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