Watson: “You may be right.”Holmes: “The probability lies in that direction.

As I turned away, I saw Holmes, with his back against a rock and his arms folded, gazing down at the rush of the waters. It was the last that I was ever destined to...

The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over...

The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.

I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Homes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer...

Let me see—what are my other shortcomings? I get in the dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just...

Exactly. Since it is morally justifiable, I have only to consider the question of personal risk. Surely a gentleman should not lay much stress upon this, when a lady is in most desperate need of...

There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.

Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is...

You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal. –Sherlock Holmes

He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city, He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract...

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.

…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...

A strange enigma is man

He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”No, I have not.”Well, well, such is fame!

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence....

Accounts are not quite settled between us,” said she, with a passion that equaled my own. “I can love, and I can hate. You had your choice. You chose to spurn the first; now you...

You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.

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

You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.

So unworldly was he–or so capricious–that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application to...

Moriarty: . . .everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.

A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her.

By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation.”I shall be delighted.”You don’t mind breaking the law?”Not in the least.”Nor running a chance of arrest?”Not in a good cause.”Oh, the cause is excellent!”Then I am...

It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?

Who knows, Watson? Woman’s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male.

I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.

You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.

You know,’ I answered, with some emotion, for I had never seen so much of Holmes’ heart before, ‘that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.

The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us, with his...

You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges...

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...

To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down...

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said he.

…Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe–“”Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?” Asked Holmes, with some asperity.”To the man of precised, scientific...

Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.

What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end,...

It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through — a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.

My correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or...

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest...

You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

I say, Watson,’ he whispered, ‘would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?’‘Not in the...

You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?””For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And...

I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.

Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.

I felt Holmes’s hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake.- Watson

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s...