When Dr. Mortimer had finished reading this singular narrative he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and stared across at Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The latter yawned and tossed the end of his cigarette into...

…above all, do not fret until you know that you really have a cause for it.

Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning.

The big blank spaces in the map are all being filled in, and there’s no room for romance anywhere.

To underestimate oneself is as much an exaggeration of one’s powers than the other.

I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.

One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it. -Sherlock Holmes

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

Picnics are very dear to those who are in the first stage of the tender passion.

It is only when you touch the higher that you realize how low we may be among the possibilities of creation.

The man might have died in a fit; but then the jewels are missing,” mused the Inspector, “Ha! I have a theory. These flashes come upon me at times… What do you think of this,...

Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every...

Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. 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...

I am lost without my Boswell.[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.]

The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.

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. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort...

It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.

Over the green squares of the fields and the low curves of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance like...

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...

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...

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have...

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

How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It...

What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.

Meu caro amigo (…), a vida é infinitamente mais estranha que qualquer coisa que a mente do homem possa inventar. Não nos atreveríamos a conceber coisas que são, afinal, lugares-comuns da existência. Se pudéssemos sair...

Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in your example.

I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a...

…So you can put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Busybody Holmes.

I assure you, my good Lestrade, that I have an excellent reason for everything that I do.

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

Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You...

No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.” ~ Sherlock Holmes

The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we...

My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!

No ghosts need apply. – Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

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...

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...

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

Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.

I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.

You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.” My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered...

So it was, my dear Watson, that at two o’clock today I found myself in my old armchair in my own old room, and only wishing that I could have seen my old friend Watson...

Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

I don’t take much stock of detectives in novels – chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That’s just inspiration: not business.

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.

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.

My business is that of every other good citizen – to uphold the law.