Arthur Conan Doyle > Quotes

“Where there is no imagination, there is no horror.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes

“If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Five Orange Pips

“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.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen.... And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“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, The Sign of Four

“It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red Headed League

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

“Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."
"Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“The future was with Fate. The present was our own.

~ The Poison Belt”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: 12 Titles

“That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
‘You appear to be astonished,’ he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. ‘Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.’
‘To forget it!’
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.’
‘But the Solar System!’ I protested.
‘What the deuce is it to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?"
"No, indeed!"
"You'll be interested to hear that I'm engaged."
"My dear fellow! I congrat-"
"To Milverton's housemaid."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I wanted information, Watson.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes

“Anything is better than stagnation.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes

“The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

“I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

“It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact.

~ Sherlock Holmes”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“You wish to put me in the dark. I tell you that I will never be put in the dark. You wish to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Final Problem and Other Stories

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“It's quite exciting," said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet