Arthur Conan Doyle

“This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and you make him a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward.”

“Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. "I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective."He gave a most dismal groan.”

“No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!”

“Watson: "Get that out of my face."Sherlock: "It's not in your face, it's in my hand."Watson: "Get what's in your hand out of my face.”

“- I have come for advice.- That is easily got.- And help.- That is not always so easy.#The Five Orange Pips”

“It is a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it.”

“I am lost without my Boswell.[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.]”

“Mon esprit est rebelle à toute inaction. Fournissez moi des problèmes,donnez moi du travail ...et la je suis dans mon élément.Je peux alors me passer de stimulants artificiels. Mais j'abhorre la morne routine de l'existence.J'ai un besoin impérieux d'excitation mentale.C'est pour cela que j'exerce cette profession si particulière, ou plutot que je l'ai crée car je suis le seul au monde”

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

“I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.”

“It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.”

“Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details.”

“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.”

“Let me say right here, Mr. Holmes, that money is nothing to me in this case. You can burn it if it’s any use in lighting you to the truth. This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and it’s up to you to do it. Name your figure! My professional charges are upon a fixed scale, I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether.”

“Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.”

“He foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.”

“The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.”

“You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.”

“By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff — By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“The whole force of the State is at your back if you should need it. I’m afraid that all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men cannot avail in this matter.”

“The London criminal is certainly a dull fellow. Look out of this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and then blend once more into the cloudbank. The thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim. There have been numerous petty thefts. This great and sombre stage is set for something more worthy than that. It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.”

“However, wretch as he was, he was still living under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that you will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge.”

“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right.”

“See the value of imagination. It is the one quality which Inspector Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed.”

“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.”

“To begin at the beginning.”

“There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.”

“As he stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought by his own hand upon his enemies.”

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

“Se trata del proceso de separación de los Dundas [...]. El marido era abstemio, no existía otra mujer, y el comportamiento del que se quejaba la esposa consistía en que el marido había adquirido la costumbre de rematar todas sus comidas quitándose la dentadura postiza y arrojándosela a su esposa, lo cual, estará usted de acuerdo, no es la clase de acto que se le suele ocurrir a un novelista corriente.”

“They're dangerous at both ends...and crafty in the middle.”

“His Ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.”

“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.”

“That which is clearly known hath less terror than that which is but hinted at and guessed.”

“If I remember rightly, you on one occasion defined my limits in a very precise fashion.""Yes," [Watson] answered, laughing. "It was a singular document. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mudstains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis.”

“The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.”

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

“El mundo esta lleno de cosas evidentes en las que nadie se fija ni por casualidad”

“Sollevò il fanale con mano così tremante che la luce danzava tutt’intorno a noi. La signorina Morstan mi afferrò il polso, il cuore in tumulto. Usciva nella notte dalla grande casa buia il più doloroso e malinconico dei suoni: il singhiozzo di una donna spaventata”

“Mi dica, dottore, a cosa serve avere determinate facoltà se non c’è modo di impiegarle? Il delitto è banale, la vita è banale, e soltanto le qualità banali hanno ormai una funzione sulla terra".”

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”

“Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy Edwards!”

“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.”

“They were admirable things for the observer - excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.”

“Meu caro amigo (...), a vida é infinitamente mais estranha que qualquer coisa que a mente do homem possa inventar. Não nos atreveríamos a conceber coisas que são, afinal, lugares-comuns da existência. Se pudéssemos sair a voar de mão dada por aquela janela, pairar sobre esta cidade, tirar cuidadosamente os telhados e espreitar as coisas esquisitas que estão a passar-se , as estranhas coincidências, as maquinações, os objectivos cruzados, as maravilhosas cadeias de acontecimentos que vão funcionando durante gerações e levam aos resultados mais outrés, a ficção tornar-se-ia, com os seus convencionalismos e conclusões previstas, muito cediça e sem interesse.”

“Oh how I've missed you, Holmes.”

“On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.”

“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week." "Strange," said I, "how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigor.”

“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.”

“You know my methods. Apply them.”