Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

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

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.

There is nothing more tragic than a broken spirit and a neglected purpose.

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.

The most difficult crime to track is one that is purposeless.

The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.

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

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science.

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

I have often said that I should like to retire to a little country village and devote myself to the study of nature.

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.

To the thinker, the most tragic fact in the whole desperate plight of old age is not the persistence of delusion but the fact that there is only one thing in the world worth deluding oneself about.

The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The ideal mystery was one you would willingly devote your life to unraveling.

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

The ego is the last straw in the glass that forever fills the glass with saints.

The chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.

There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

You see, but you do not observe.

Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.

What one man can invent, another can discover.

I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Homes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.

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.

You see, but you do not observe.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of a man can invent.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.

My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work.

The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

To the scientific mind, after its weary labors, the pearly gates of science will open.

You can’t congratulate yourself on catching a criminal when the real criminal is still at large.

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.

It is always awkward doing business with an alias.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.

There’s nothing like boredom to get the creative juices flowing.

The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?

There is nothing so important as trifles.