A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A long shot, Watson, a very long shot!
– Sir 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.
– Sir 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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing as deceptive as an obvious fact.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
You know my methods, Watson.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
You see, but you do not observe.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
We can't command our love, but we can our actions.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.
– Sir 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.