The Quotes of Sherlocke Holmes

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 6 (1889).

Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet, ch. 5 (1888).

"It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital. . . . I would call your 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."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Gregory, in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, "Silver Blaze" (1893).

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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet, ch. 2 (1887). Holmes made a similar comparison in The Five Orange Pips.

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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "The Five Orange Pips" (1892). Holmes expressed a similar idea in A Study in Scarlet. 

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "The Speckled Band" (1892), having driven a poisonous snake to return fatally upon its owner, Dr. Grimesby Roylott.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "Scandal in Bohemia" (1892). In A Study in Scarlet, ch. 3, Holmes reiterated, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement."

My mind 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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 1 (1890).

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain 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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes to Watson, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "A Case of Identity" (1892).

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "The Speckled Band" (1892), of Dr. Grimesby Roylott.

The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 2 (1890).

Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 1 (1890).

A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 2 (1890).

You will, I am sure, agree with me that . . . if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Valley of Fear, ch. 1 (1915).

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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson, in The Sign of Four, ch. 1 (1890). Watson had written what he called "a small brochure, with the somewhat fantastic title of 'A Study in Scarlet'"-the name of the tale in which Conan Doyle first introduced Sherlock Holmes.

From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet, pt. 1, ch. 2 (1887).

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet, ch. 5 (1887). 

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "A Case of Identity" (1892).

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.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in A Study in Scarlet, ch. 2 (1887).

The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes to Watson, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "Copper Beeches" (1892).

I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, "A Case of Identity" (1892).

All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in His Last Bow, "The Bruce-Partington Plans" (1917), of his brother Mycroft.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit-destructive to the logical faculty.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), English author. Sherlock Holmes, in The Sign of Four, ch. 1 (1890).