Arthur Conan Doyle

No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

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.

Oh how I've missed you, Holmes.

What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. "What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.

There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.

For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.

It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.

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.

You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?" "For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine bottle.

I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.

Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.

There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror.

Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind." "Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.

My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law.

I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!

There are no fools so troublesome as those who have some wit.