“better to be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother”

“Anything is better than stagnation.”

“…but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”

“I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.”

“There are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all other loves, and I think that she must have been one.”

“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.”

“if i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.”