Quotes About Sherlock Holmes

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery

“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
---Sherlock Holmes”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

“The game is afoot.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of the Abbey Grange

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“I consider that a man's brain originally 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 a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful 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 the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think 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.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow

“My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'

To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'

The dog did nothing in the night-time.'

That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Silver Blaze

“I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“To a great mind, nothing is little,' remarked Holmes, sententiously.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“I'm not a psychopath, I'm a fully functioning sociopath. Do your research.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Don't talk, Anderson. You lower the IQ of the entire street every time you open your mouth.”
― Sherlock Holmes

“I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.”
― Laurie R. King

“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.'
That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked.
One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“I wanted to end the world but,I'll settle for ending yours.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure Of The Dying Detective

“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery

“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

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

“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

“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red Headed League