201 quotes found
“Why should you go further in it? What have you to gain from it?''What, indeed? It is art for art's sake, Watson. I suppose when you doctored, you found yourself studying cases without thought of a ...”
“She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good.”
“It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher.”
“The country inspector's face had shown his intense amazement at the rapid and masterful progress of Holmes' investigation. At first he had shown some disposition to assert his own position, but now...”
“Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.”
“It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.”
“It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.”
“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.”
“Well,' said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return once more to London, 'it has been a pretty business for me! I have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what have I...”
“Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentenceThis account of you we have from all quarters received. A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteo...”
“The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter; The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the Heretics said from the platter. They argued it long and they arg...”
“There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.”
“...it is only when a man goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him,...”
“I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the ...”
“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.”
“What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great stand...”
“[O]n general principles it is best that I should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without me, and it causes an unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes.”
“For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”
“It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?”
“She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time.”
