Best 19 quotes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on MyQuotes

Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs.

Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in soutern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison?

I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.

I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.

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. I can dispense with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him: but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting- room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.

Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.

That hurts my pride, Watson. It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now..." -Sherlock Holmes- -The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Five Orange Pips-

The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter; The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the Heretics said from the platter. They argued it long and they argued it strong, And I hear they are arguing now; But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese, Not one of them thought of a cow.

The future was with Fate. The present was our own. ~ The Poison Belt

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.

There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time over the scream of a wounded hare. Yet the blood lust was on me now. I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did so.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire. A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

We all have neglected opportunities to deplore.

Well, Watson, what do you make of it?' Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation. 'How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.' 'I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me', said he.

Y jamás se mostraba tan formidable como después de pasar días enteros en su sillón, sumido en sus improvisaciones y en sus libros antiguos.

You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. --Sherlock Holmes