199 Quotes & Sayings By Arthur Conan Doyle

From the first day I met her, she was the only woman to me. Every day of that voyage I loved her more, and many a time since have I kneeled down in the darkness of the night watch and kissed the deck of that ship because I knew her dear feet had trod it. She was never engaged to me. She treated me as fairly as ever a woman treated a man. I have no complaint to make. It was all love on my side, and all good comradeship and friendship on hers. When we parted she was a free woman, but I could never again be a free man. . Arthur Conan Doyle

My dear Watson, " said [Sherlock Holmes], "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers. Arthur Conan Doyle

Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my 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, ' remarked Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle

There is a danger there - a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become? Arthur Conan Doyle

The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? Arthur Conan Doyle

You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”“ A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”“ 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 me to be right. Arthur Conan Doyle

It is easy to be wise after the event. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion, " said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. 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 have much to hope from the flowers. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself." Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea."" The board-schools."" Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future. Arthur Conan Doyle

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. What matter if I hold my readers? Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.10. Plays the violin well.11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law. . Arthur Conan Doyle

Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 argued it strong, And I hear they are arguing now; But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese, Not one of them thought of a cow. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 soothing company of the great dead, and then you are through the magic portal into that fair land whither worry and vexation can follow you no more. You have left all that is vulgar and all that is sordid behind you. There stand your noble, silent comrades, waiting in their ranks. Pass your eye down their files. Choose your man. And then you have but to hold up your hand to him and away you go together into dreamland. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 your man.'' I was sure that I might rely on you. Arthur Conan Doyle

..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 mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly."" Then had you not better consult him?"" I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently--"" Just a little, " said Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle

Well, Watson, what do you make of it?' Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.' How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.'' I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me', said he. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there. Arthur Conan Doyle

A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. Arthur Conan Doyle

To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

I do not think that life has any joy to offer so complete, so soul-filling as that which comes upon the imaginative lad, whose spare time is limited, but who is able to snuggle down into a corner with his book, knowing that the next hour is all his own. And how vivid and fresh it all is! Arthur Conan Doyle

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire. A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him. Arthur Conan Doyle

It is a question of cubic capacity, " said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. Arthur Conan Doyle

She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good. Arthur Conan Doyle

‎A change of work is the best rest. Arthur Conan Doyle

Anything is better than stagnation. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.' That's a rather broad idea, ' I remarked. One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature, ' he answered. . Arthur Conan Doyle

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 shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!. Arthur Conan Doyle

How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature! Arthur Conan Doyle

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson–all else will come. Arthur Conan Doyle

Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other until that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I would go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us. . Arthur Conan Doyle

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 miserable ways of our fellowmen. Arthur Conan Doyle

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. Arthur Conan Doyle

My mind, " he said, "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. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world. Arthur Conan Doyle

(...) 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. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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 must test the other. Arthur Conan Doyle

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. Arthur Conan Doyle

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains 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. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 some fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his gaze fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long and left their mark so deep. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 to lie. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own. You may not appreciate them at first. You may pine for your novel of crude and unadulterated adventure. You may, and will, give it the preference when you can. But the dull days come, and the rainy days come, and always you are driven to fill up the chinks of your reading with the worthy books which wait so patiently for your notice. And then suddenly, on a day which marks an epoch in your life, you understand the difference. You see, like a flash, how the one stands for nothing, and the other for literature. From that day onwards you may return to your crudities, but at least you do so with some standard of comparison in your mind. You can never be the same as you were before. Then gradually the good thing becomes more dear to you; it builds itself up with your growing mind; it becomes a part of your better self, and so, at last, you can look, as I do now, at the old covers and love them for all that they have meant in the past. . Arthur Conan Doyle

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 fee?'' For my education, Holmes.''Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last. Arthur Conan Doyle

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. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 with admiration, and ready to follow without question wherever Holmes lead. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

...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, that he breaks away... from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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

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 heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated. Arthur Conan Doyle

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. Arthur Conan Doyle

[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. Arthur Conan Doyle

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. Arthur Conan Doyle

When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder Arthur Conan Doyle

Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. Arthur Conan Doyle

In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself. Arthur Conan Doyle

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to share my Arthur Conan Doyle

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. Arthur Conan Doyle

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 to identify. Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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? Sholto was, on his own confession, with his brother last night. The brother died in a fit, on which Sholto walked off the treasure! How's that?"" On which the dead man very considerately got up and locked the door on the inside, " said Holmes. . Arthur Conan Doyle

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

Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper. ~ Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle

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 Arthur Conan Doyle

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 upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles. Arthur Conan Doyle

Oh how I've missed you, Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle

Yes, the setting (Dartmoor) is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men. Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Arthur Conan Doyle

Art in the blood is liable to take the strongest forms Arthur Conan Doyle

Before we begin to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental. Arthur Conan Doyle

Now, Watson, " said he, "we have picked up two clues this morning. One is the bicycle with the Palmer tyre, and we see what that has led to. The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start to investigate that, let us try to realize what we do know, so as to make the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental. Arthur Conan Doyle