Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes (111 Quotes)

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.

Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.

'... 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.

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 ....

Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.

There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

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.

Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.

'Excellent' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he.

From a drop of water a logician could predict an Atlantic or a Niagara.

There is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

'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.

Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.

You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles.

We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

It is quite a three-pipe problem.

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

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

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

'Excellent' I Watson cried. 'Elementary.' said he Holmes. Watson talking to Sherlock Holmes in The Crooked Man.

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.

You know my method, Watson. It is founded on the observances of trifles.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

Like all Holmes' reasoning, the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. Dr. Watson, speaking of Sherlock Holmes.

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 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.

The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.

Excellent he (Dr. Watson) cried. Elementary, said he (Holmes).

I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.

How dangerous it is to reason from insufficient data.

The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

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.

'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.'

To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.

The bow was made in England Of true wood, of yew wood. The wood of English bows.

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.

They were the footprints of a gigantic hound.