“There are no fools so troublesome as those of the mind”

“So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.”

“Most people, if you describe a train of events to them will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically.”

“Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.”

“The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.”

“It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs”

“I say, Watson,’ he whispered, ‘would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?’‘Not in the least,’ I answered in astonishment.‘Ah, that’s lucky,’ he said, and not another word would he utter that night.”