Explore Quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment.

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.

Streams may spring from one source, and yet some be clear and some be foul.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.' That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked. One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.

To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.

There is a danger there - a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?

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

Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.

We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.

I wanted to end the world but,I'll settle for ending yours.

The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.

Anything is better than stagnation.

The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.

Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.

When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.

Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.