Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the imagination.

A fine horse or a beautiful woman, I cannot look at them unmoved, even now when seventy winters have chilled my blood.

But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things.

Amberley excelled at chess - a mark, Watson, of a scheming mind.

Several incidents in my life have convinced me of spiritual interposition - of the promptings of some beneficent force outside ourselves, which tries to help us where it can.

It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously . . .

I must apologize for calling so late," said he, "and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.

He foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.

A study of family portraits is enough to convert a man to the theory of reincarnation.

An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement . . .

I am engaged in answering that Italian buffoon, Mazotti, whose views upon the larval development of the tropical termites have excited my derision and contempt . . .

'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.

I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.

The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.

You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.

The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question.

He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one.

There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.

Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind." "Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.

If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.

The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished.

Steel True, Blade Straight.

I have wrought my simple plan If I give one hour of joy To the boy who’s half a man, Or the man who’s half a boy.

It is all in the way of professional experience.

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

I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it.

Three quiet days. This hell fiend is like a cat with a mouse. She lets me loose only to pounce upon me again. I am never so frightened as when every thing is still.

I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake. - Watson

You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?" "For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine bottle.

So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.

I love and am loved by a better man than he.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.

I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by my wrist and pushed me back into my chair. 'It is both, or none,' said he. 'You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me.

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.

Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.

I suppose I shall have to compound a felony as usual.

On general principles, it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.

If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are.

Accounts are not quite settled between us," said she, with a passion that equaled my own. "I can love, and I can hate. You had your choice. You chose to spurn the first; now you must test the other.

There was a brisk northern wind, heavy and wet with the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned his face to it, fresh life and strength surging in his blood and bracing his limbs.

I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.

It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research.

It is easy to be wise after the event.