The collection / 197 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1894 AD

The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes' investigation. At first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position, but now he was overcome with admiration, and ready to follow without question wherever Holmes lead.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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02c. 1894 AD

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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03c. 1894 AD

...it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he breaks away... from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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04c. 1894 AD

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.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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05c. 1894 AD

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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06c. 1894 AD

It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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07c. 1894 AD

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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08c. 1894 AD

I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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09c. 1894 AD

[O]n general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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10c. 1894 AD

She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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11c. 1894 AD

When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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12c. 1894 AD

Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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13c. 1894 AD

In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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14c. 1894 AD

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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15c. 1894 AD

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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16c. 1894 AD

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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17c. 1894 AD

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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18c. 1894 AD

The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing," mused the Inspector, "Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times... What do you think of this, Holmes? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! How's that?""On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside," said Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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19c. 1894 AD

No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely." ~ Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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20c. 1894 AD

Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper. ~ Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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21c. 1894 AD

You know, Watson, I don't mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. --Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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22c. 1894 AD

To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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23c. 1894 AD

Oh how I've missed you, Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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24c. 1894 AD

Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle / quote

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