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Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes - Page 14

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I must apologize for calling so late, said he, and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.

I must apologize for calling so late," said he, "and I must further beg you to be so unconventional as to allow me to leave your house presently by scrambling over your back garden wall.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Wall, Garden, House
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “Collected Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Delphi Classics)”, p.630, Delphi Classics

Goresthorpe Grange is a feudal mansion - or so it was termed in the advertisement which originally brought it under my notice. Its right to this adjective had a most remarkable effect upon its price, and the advantages gained may possibly be more sentimental than real. Still, it is soothing to me to know that I have slits in my staircase through which I can discharge arrows; and there is a sense of power in the fact of possessing a complicated apparatus by means of which I am enabled to pour molten lead upon the head of the casual visitor.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Real, Humorous, Mean
Arthur Conan Doyle (2017). “The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated): Complete Sherlock Holmes Books, The Professor Challenger Series, The Brigadier Gerard Stories… (Including Poetry, Plays, Historical Works, Spiritualist Writings & Personal Memoirs)”, p.6172, e-artnow

And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Humorous, Mean, Sarcasm
Arthur Conan Doyle (2016). “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”, p.174, My Ebook Publishing House

You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?" "Yes, he did." "When did he say this?" "When he left me." "Did he say anything more?" "He mentioned his name." Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. "Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?" “His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Names, Say Anything, Triumph
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.527, Race Point Pub

The husband was a teetotaller, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Husband, Wife, Teeth
Arthur Conan Doyle, Scott McKowen (2004). “The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes”, p.34, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Humorous, Drinking, Mean
Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.425, GENERAL PRESS

"I should have more faith," he said; "I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation."

Arthur Conan Doyle
Faith, Knowledge, Science
"A Study in Scarlet". Book by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887.

A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Running, Art, Use
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, Choi Hyun (2016). “A Study in Scarlet”, p.32, ebookspub

Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Summer, Ocean, Dark
Arthur Conan Doyle (2000). “Tales of Unease”, p.95, Wordsworth Editions

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Humorous, Sarcasm, Science
The Sign of the Four ch. 1 (1890)

Life, my dear Watson, is infinitely stranger than fiction; stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We could not conceive the things that are merely commonplace to existence. If we could hover over this great city, remove the roofs, and peep in at the things going on, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions flat, stale and unprofitable.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Men, Cities, Mind

I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Giving, Causes, Results
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.374, Race Point Pub

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
Two, Four, Might
Arthur Conan Doyle (2016). “Sherlock Holmes - The Novels: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear”, p.17, BoD - Books on Demand

It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this." I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself. "Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea." "The board-schools." "Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Running, Spring, School
Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.340, GENERAL PRESS

One forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human nature is weak. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Time, Nature, Waiting

It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Skulls, Intention, Moriarty
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.500, Race Point Pub

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Animal, Links, Able
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, David Stuart Davies (1998). “The Best of Sherlock Holmes”, p.53, Wordsworth Editions

'It is my duty to warn you that it will be used against you,' cried the Inspector, with the magnificent fair play of the British criminal law.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Law, Play, Criminals
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.648, Race Point Pub

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Humanity, Matter, Ifs
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “Sherlock Holmes Collection: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow”, p.1681, Lulu Press, Inc

...while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Men, Statistics, Individual
Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Watson in The Sign of Four (1890).

If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Alive, Rooms, Watson
Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.786, GENERAL PRESS

By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.' 'I shall be delighted.' 'You don't mind breaking the law?' 'Not in the least.' 'Nor running a chance of arrest?' 'Not in a good cause.' 'Oh, the cause is excellent!' 'Then I am your man.' 'I was sure that I might rely on you.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Running, Men, Law
Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.172, Race Point Publishing

He seems to have declared war on the King’s English as well as on the English king.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Kings, War, Wells
Arthur Conan Doyle (2007). “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories: The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Non-slipcased Edition) (Vol. 2) (The Annotated Books)”, p.1430, W. W. Norton & Company

If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Literature, Moments, Obscure
Arthur Conan Doyle (2012). “The Sherlock Holmes Archives (incl. The Truth About Sherlock Holmes)”, p.9, Jazzybee Verlag

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Arthur Conan Doyle
Book, Eye, Home
Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Illustrated): All 4 Novels and 56 Stories with More Than 480 Illustrations”, p.126, Top Five Books LLC

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