Best 436 quotes of Arthur Conan Doyle on MyQuotes

Arthur Conan Doyle

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    All right, Watson. Don’t look so scared,” he muttered in a very weak voice. “It’s not as bad as it seems.” “Thank God for that!” “I’m a bit of a single-stick expert, as you know. I took most of them on my guard. It was the second man that was too much for me.” “What can I do, Holmes? Of course, it was that damned fellow who set them on. I’ll go and thrash the hide off him if you give the word.” “Good old Watson!(...)

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H." It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to see of him in this world. - Watson.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Brothers are a blessing for one thing. There is no possibility of any young lady getting unreasonably conceited if she be endowed with them.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    …but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff — By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.' 'I shall be delighted.' 'You don't mind breaking the law?' 'Not in the least.' 'Nor running a chance of arrest?' 'Not in a good cause.' 'Oh, the cause is excellent!' 'Then I am your man.' 'I was sure that I might rely on you.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Clouds of insects danced and buzzed in the golden autumn light, and the air was full of the piping of the song-birds. Long, glinting dragonflies shot across the path, or hung tremulous with gauzy wings and gleaming bodies.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull us through.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Critics kind never mind! Critics flatter no matter! Critics blame all the same! Do your best damn the rest!

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    ""Dear girl," continued Bob advancing with an imbecile grin upon his countenance, which he imagined no doubt to be a seductive smile, "fly with me! Be mine! Share with me the wild free life of a barrister! Say that you return the love which consumes my heart - oh, say it!" Here Bob put his hand over a hole in his waistcoat and struck a dramatic attitude.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    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 ... Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it.'' —Sherlock Holmes on John Watson's "pamphlet", "A Study in Scarlet".

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Dogmas of every kind put assertion in the place of reason and give rise to more contention, bitterness, and want of charity than any other influence in human affairs.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Dogs don't make mistakes.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Do you know anything on earth which has not a dangerous side if it is mishandled and exaggerated?

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Draw your chair up, and hand me my violin, for the only problem which we have still to solve is how to while away these bleak autumnal evenings.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    "Dr. Munro, sir," said he, "I am a walking museum. You could fit what ISN'T the matter with me on to the back of a -- visiting card. If there's any complaint you want to make a special study of, just you come to me, sir, and see what I can do for you. It's not every one that can say that he has had cholera three times, and cured himself by living on red pepper and brandy.

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    Arthur Conan Doyle

    Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.