It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that while understanding an individual person is complex and challenging, studying a group of people reveals predictable patterns.
Arthur Conan Doyle reflects on the paradox of human behavior, noting that while each person is unique and difficult to fully understand (an 'insoluble puzzle'), when individuals are examined as a collective, their behaviors and tendencies can often be predicted with certainty, akin to mathematical calculations. This highlights the contrast between individual complexity and collective predictability in human nature.
Themes
Human BehaviorIndividualityCollectivePredictabilityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a psychology seminar discussing the complexity of human behavior.
More from Arthur Conan Doyle
All quotes →I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
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.
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You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.
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I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.
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It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead
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