Sherlock Holmes

From BillionQuotes

Jump to: navigation, search
The factual accuracy of this article is disputed.
Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.

This page is for quotations from the Sherlock Holmes series of stories, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Arrangement is by theme, sourced quotations first followed by unsourced quotations.

Contents

[edit]

The impossible and the improbable

  • "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
    • The Sign of Four (1890)
  • "Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth."
    • The Sign of Four (1890)
  • "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
    • The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet (1892)
  • "That is the case as it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still."
    • Silver Blaze (1892)
  • "It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong."
    • The Adventure of The Priory School (1904)
  • "We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
    • The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plans (1908)
  • "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
    • The Adventure of The Blanched Soldier (1926)
  • "It is more than possible; it is probable."
    • Silver Blaze (1892)


[edit]

Holmesian methodology

  • "I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule."
    • The Sign of the Four (1890)
  • "Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person."
    • Silver Blaze (1892)
  • "There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps."
    • A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 7
  • "They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work."
    • A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 3
  • "You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all."
    • A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 4
  • "Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems."
    • A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 2
  • "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "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.[…]"
    • The Boscombe Valley Mystery (1892)
  • "Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."
    • The Yellow Face (1894)
  • "Things must be done decently and in order."
    • The Adventure of the Retired Colourman (1927)
[edit]

Sound reasoning

  • "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment."
    • A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  • "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
    • A Scandal in Bohemia (1891)
  • "There should be no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation."
    • The Valley of Fear (1914-1915)
  • "What one man can invent another can discover."
    • The Adventure of the Dancing Men (1903)
  • "Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand."
    • The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904)
  • "Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs."
    • The Adventure of the Three Students (1904)
  • "One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation."
    • The Adventure of Black Peter (1905)
  • "We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination."
    • The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 4
  • "In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the everyday affairs of life it is more useful to reason forward, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically."
    • A Study in Scarlet, Chapter 7
  • "The observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able accurately to state all the other ones, both before and after."
    • The Five Orange Pips
  • "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."
    • A Study in Scarlet
[edit]

Trifles

  • "You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles."
    • The Boscombe Valley Mystery (1891)
  • "It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles."
    • The Man with the Twisted Lip (1891)
  • "The little things are infinitely more important."
    • A Case of Identity (1891)
  • "I am glad of all details," remarked my friend, "whether they seem to you to be relevant or not."
    • The Copper Beeches (1892)
  • "It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize out of a number of facts which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated."
    • The Reigate Puzzle (1894)
  • "I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles."
    • The Adventure of The Lion's Mane (1926)
[edit]

Observation and research

  • "You see but you do not observe. The distinction is clear."
    • A Scandal in Bohemia
  • "Data! Data! Data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."
    • The Adventure of the Copper Beeches (1892)
  • "In my profession all sorts of odd knowledge comes useful, and this room of yours is a storehouse of it."
    • The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
  • "A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library where he can get it if he wants it."
    • The Five Orange Pips
  • "It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this, I have endeavoured in my case to do."
    • The Five Orange Pips
  • "On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences."
    • The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle (1892)
  • "You see Watson, but you do not observe."
    • "Sherlock Holmes: Greatest Mysteries"
[edit]

Nothing but the commonplace

  • "There is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace."
    • A Case of Identity (1891)
  • "I know my dear Watson, that you share my love all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life."
    • The Red-Headed League
  • "Hence the cocaine. I cannot live without brain-work. 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 dun-colored houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth."
    • The Sign of the Four
  • "Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home."
  • "Only one important thing has happened in the last three days, and that is that nothing has happened."
  • "Results without causes are much more impressive."
  • "We must look for consistency. Where there is want of it we must suspect deception."
[edit]

Motivation

  • "Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same."
  • "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"
  • "Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic."
  • "Cut out the poetry, Watson."
  • "There is no prospect of danger, or I should not dream of stirring out without you."
  • "The theories which I have expressed, and which appear to you to be so chimerical, are really extremely practical — so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."
  • "There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you."
  • "Well, Watson, we can but possess our souls in patience and see what the hour may bring."
  • "We can but try."
  • "There can be no question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast."
[edit]

Life, the world, and human nature

  • "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
    • A Case of Identity (1891)
  • "There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible."
    • The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (1908)
  • "What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe that you have done."
    • A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  • "London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained."
    • A Study in Scarlet (1887)
  • He smiled gently. "It is of the first importance," he said, "not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit -- a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor."
    • The Sign of the Four
  • "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."
    • The Valley of Fear (1914-1915)
  • "Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last."
    • The Red Circle (1917)
  • "Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph."
    • The Dying Detective (1917)
  • "There is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear."
    • The Cardboard Box (1917)
[edit]

Law and justice

  • "I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go."
    • The Adventure of The Three Gables (1926)
  • "What I know is unofficial; what he knows is official."
    • The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904)
  • "There is so much red tape in these matters."
    • The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter (1904)
[edit]

Dogs

  • "Dogs don't make mistakes."
    • The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place (1927)
  • "That the dog should die was after the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs."
    • The Adventure of The Lion's Mane (1926)
  • "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
    "To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime."
    "The dog did nothing in the nighttime."
    "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
    • Silver Blaze (1892), a conversation between Holmes and Inspector Gregory


[edit]

Assorted

  • "Holmes the meddler. Holmes the busy-body. Holmes the Scotland Yard jack-in-office!"
    • The Adventure of the Speckled Band
  • "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 with the treasure? How's that?” - Inspector Jones "On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside."
    • The Sign of Four
  • "Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H. It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets."
    • The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
  • "Think of Mycroft's note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for news. We are bound to go."
    My answer was to rise from the table.
    "You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go."
    • The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
  • "We had got as far as this when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the tap-room 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. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious back-hander which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much more profitable than your own."
  • "It is my business to know what other people don't know."
    • The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
[edit]

Elemental elementary

  • Elementary, my dear Watson
    • In the stories by Conan Doyle, Holmes often remarked that his logical conclusions were "elementary", in that he considered them to be simple and obvious. However, the complete phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" does not appear in any of the 60 Holmes stories written by Doyle. The beginning of The Crooked Man is the closest that "Elementary" and "my dear Watson" ever appear in the text, but the two phrases are separated by a paragraph-- and are in the wrong order.
    • It does appear at the very end of the 1929 film, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first Sherlock Holmes sound film.
[edit]

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:
Wikisource has original text related to Sherlock Holmes.


Wikiquote links: People - Literary Works - Proverbs - Films - TV Shows - Themes - Categories
Retrieved from "http://www.billionquotes.com/index.php/Sherlock_Holmes"
Personal tools