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...

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 he was overcome...

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...

To a great mind, nothing is little.

You know my methods. Apply them.

Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and...

A strong wind sang sadly as it bent the trees in front of the Hall. A half moon shone through the dark, flying clouds on to the wild and empty moor.

There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult...

Omne ignotum pro magnifico.

The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may mean everything

My friend’s wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair.”You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake say that you’re not hurt!”It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds-...

How long is this to last?” asked the inspector finally. “And what is it we are watching for?””I have no more notion than you how long it is to last,” Holmes answered with some asperity....

Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?

A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony.

Some believe what separates men from animals is our ability to reason. Others say it’s language or romantic love, or opposable thumbs. Living here in this lost world, I’ve come to believe it is more...

I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson,” said he. “When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I...

No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!

I wanted to end the world, but I’ll settle for ending yours.

Y jamás se mostraba tan formidable como después de pasar días enteros en su sillón, sumido en sus improvisaciones y en sus libros antiguos.

Per Sherlock Holmes ella è sempre la donna. Raramente l’ho sentito accennare a lei in altro modo. Ai suoi occhi, supera e annulla tutte le altre esponenti del suo sesso.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

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.

It’s every man’s business to see justice done.

My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance...

He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the...

‘Rache,’ is the German for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.” With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him.

The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure- these, and not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion.

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

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...

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals.

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.

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.

Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar...

What a lovely thing a rose is!”He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It...

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety.

You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind...

I must thank you,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied...

The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring energy; and as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in...

…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