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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

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Do You Know, Watson,"

Arthur Conan Doyle

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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.

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Draw Your Chair Up, And Hand Me My Violin, For The Only Problem Which We Have Still To Solve Is How To While Away These Bleak Autumnal Evenings.

It Is Decreed By A Merciful Nature That The Human Brain Cannot Think Of Two Things Simultaneously . . .

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To Let The Brain Work Without Sufficient Material Is Like Racing An Engine. It Racks Itself To Pieces.

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This Looks Like One Of Those Unwelcome Social Summonses Which Call Upon A Man Either To Be Bored Or To Lie.

It Seems To Leave The Darkness Rather Blacker Than Before.

When People Bury Treasure Nowadays They Do It In The Post-office Bank.

Holy Men! Holy Cabbages! Holy Bean Pods! What Do They Do But Live And Suck In Sustenance And Grow Fat?

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There Is No Satisfaction In Vengeance Unless The Offender Has Time To Realize Who It Is That Strikes Him, And Why Retribution Has Come Upon Him.

Everything Comes In Circles. [...] The Old Wheel Turns, And The Same Spoke Comes Up. It's All Been Done Before, And Will Be Again.

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I Had Neither Kith Nor Kin In England, And Was Therefore As Free As Air -- Or As Free As An Income Of Eleven Shillings And Sixpence A Day Will Permit A Man To Be. Under Such Circumstances, I Naturally Gravitated To London, That Great Cesspool Into Which All The Loungers And Idlers Of The Empire Are Irresistibly Drained.

You Know How Easily And Suddenly These Things Happen, Beginning In Playful Teasing And Ending In Something A Little Warmer Than Friendship. You Squeeze The Slender Arm Which Is Passed Through Yours, You Venture To Take The Little Gloved Hand, You Say Good Night At Absurd Length In The Shadow Of The Door. It Is Innocent And Very Interesting, Love Trying His Wings In A First Little Flutter.

What A Lovely Thing A Rose Is!

The Most Serious Point In The Case Is The Disposition Of The Child." What On Earth Has That To Do With It?" I Ejaculated. My Dear Watson, You As A Medical Man Are Continually Gaining Insight As To The Tendencies Of A Child By The Study Of The Parents. Don't You See That The Converse Is Equally Valid. I Have Frequently Gained My First Real Insight Into The Character Of Parents By Studying Their Children.

You Have Been In Afghanistan I Perceive.

Never Trust To General Impressions, My Boy, But Concentrate Yourself Upon Details.

The Larger Crimes Are Apt To Be The Simpler, For The Bigger The Crime, The More Obvious, As A Rule, Is The Motive.

He Burst Into One Of His Rare Fits Of Laughter As He Turned Away From The Picture. I Have Not Heard Him Laugh Often, And It Has Always Boded Ill To Somebody.

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You Yourself May Not Be Luminous, But You Are A Conductor Of Light.

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Why Should People Ever Take Credit For Charity When They Must Know That They Cannot Gain As Much Pleasure Out Of Their Guineas In Any Other Fashion?

We Surely Know By Some Nameless Instinct More About Our Futures Than We Think We Know.

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I Wanted To End The World But,i'll Settle For Ending Yours.

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Healthy Scepticism Is The Basis Of All Accurate Observation.

To A Great Mind, Nothing Is Little,' Remarked Holmes, Sententiously.

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‎a Change Of Work Is The Best Rest.

When The Impossible Has Been Eliminated, All That Remains No Matter How Improbable Is Possible.

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The Best Way Of Successfully Acting A Part Is To Be It.

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Bricks And Mortar

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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.

[sherlock Holmes:] The Temptation To Form Premature Theories Upon Insufficient Data Is The Bane Of Our Profession.

Should I Ever Marry, Watson, I Should Hope To Inspire My Wife With Some Feeling Which Would Prevent Her From Being Walked Off By A Housekeeper When My Corpse Was Lying Within A Few Yards Of Her.

There Are No Crimes And No Criminals In These Days. What Is The Use Of Having Brains In Our Profession? I Know Well That I Have It In Me To Make My Name Famous. No Man Lives Or Has Ever Lived Who Has Brought The Same Amount Of Study And Of Natural Talent To The Detection Of Crime Which I Have Done. And What Is The Result? There Is No Crime To Detect, Or, At Most, Some Bungling Villainy With A Motive So Transparent That Even A Scotland Yard Official Can See Through It.

My Name Is Sherlock Holmes. It Is My Business To Know What Other People Do Not Know.

There Are Times, Young Fellah, When Every One Of Us Must Make A Stand For Human Right And Justice, Or You Never Feel Clean Again.

When We Think How Narrow And Devious This Path Of Nature Is, How Dimly We Can Trace It, For All Our Lamps Of Science, And How From The Darkness Which Girds It Round Great And Terrible Possibilities Loom Ever Shadowly Upwards, It Is A Bold And A Confident Man Who Will Put A Limit To The Strange By-oaths Into Which The Human Spirit May Wander.

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.

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.

Violence Recoils On The Violent.

Every Man Finds His Limitations, Mr. Holmes, But At Least It Cures Us Of The Weakness Of Self-satisfaction.

I Am Afraid That I Rather Give Myself Away When I Explain," Said He. "results Without Causes Are Much More Impressive.

A Man With So Large A Brain Must Have Something In It.

"i Can See Nothing," Said I, Handing It Back To My Friend. "on The Contrary, Watson, You Can See Everything. You Fail, However, To Reason From What You See. You Are Too Timid In Drawing Your Inferences."

The Chief Proof Of Man's Real Greatness Lies In His Perception Of His Own Smallness.

You See, But You Do Not Observe.

Anything Is Better Than Stagnation.

I Am Somewhat Exhausted; I Wonder How A Battery Feels When It Pours Electricity Into A Non-conductor?

One Forms Provisional Theories And Waits For Time Or Fuller Knowledge To Explode Them. A Bad Habit, Mr. Ferguson, But Human Nature Is Weak. Sherlock Holmes Speaking With Dr. Watson.

No Man Burdens His Mind With Small Matters Unless He Has Some Very Good Reason For Doing So.

As A Rule, The More Bizarre A Thing Is, The Less Mysterious It Proves To Be.

Nature Is The True Revelation Of The Deity To Man. The Nearest Green Field Is The Inspired Page From Which You May Read All That It Is Needful For You To Know.

And Yet The Motives Of Women Are So Inscrutable. You Remember The Woman At Margate Whom I Suspected For The Same Reason. No Powder On Her Nose - That Proved To Be The Correct Solution. How Can You Build On Such A Quicksand? Their Most Trivial Action May Mean Volumes, Or Their Most Extraordinary Conduct May Depend Upon A Hairpin Or A Curling Tongs.

On 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.

Come What May, I Am Bound To Think That All Things Are Ordered For The Best; Though When The Good Is A Furlong Off, And We With Our Beetle Eyes Can Only See Three Inches, It Takes Some Confidence In General Principles To Pull Us Through.

He Seems To Have Declared War On The King’s English As Well As On The English King.

It Was In The Days When France's Power Was Already Broken Upon The Seas, And When More Of Her Three-deckers Lay Rotting In The Medway Than Were To Be Found In Brest Harbour. But Her Frigates And Corvettes Still Scoured The Ocean, Closely Followed Ever By Those Of Her Rival. At The Uttermost Ends Of The Earth These Dainty Vessels, With Sweet Names Of Girls Or Of Flowers, Mangled And Shattered Each Other For The Honour Of The Four Yards Of Bunting Which Flapped From The End Of Their Gaffs.

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.

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It Is The Sweetest Spring Within The Memory Of Man. So Green, So Mild, So Beautiful! Ah, What A Contrast Between Nature Without And My Own Soul So Torn With Doubt And Terror!

I Think There Are Certain Crimes Which The Law Cannot Touch, And Which Therefore, To Some Extent, Justify Private Revenge.

Goresthorpe Grange Is A Feudal Mansion - Or So It Was Termed In The Advertisement Which Originally Brought It Under My Notice. Its Right To This Adjective Had A Most Remarkable Effect Upon Its Price, And The Advantages Gained May Possibly Be More Sentimental Than Real. Still, It Is Soothing To Me To Know That I Have Slits In My Staircase Through Which I Can Discharge Arrows; And There Is A Sense Of Power In The Fact Of Possessing A Complicated Apparatus By Means Of Which I Am Enabled To Pour Molten Lead Upon The Head Of The Casual Visitor.

I Am An Omnivorous Reader With A Strangely Retentive Memory For Trifles.

What You Do In This World Is A Matter Of No Consequence. The Question Is, What Can You Make People Believe That You Have Done?

I Cannot Live Without Brainwork. What Else Is There To Live For

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.

It Is Only Goodness Which Gives Extras, And So I Say Again That We Have Much To Hope From The Flowers.

The Sky Was Of The Deepest Blue, With A Few White, Fleecy Clouds Drifting Lazily Across It, And The Air Was Filled With The Low Drone Of Insects Or With A Sudden Sharper Note As Bee Or Bluefly Shot Past With Its Quivering, Long-drawn Hum, Like An Insect Tuning-fork.

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.

It Is More Than Possible; It Is Probable.

It Is With Nations As It Is With Individuals. A Book Of History Is A Book Of Sermons.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Who Was Usually Very Late In The Mornings, Save Upon Those Not Infrequent Occasions When He Was Up All Night, Was Seated At The Breakfast Table. I Stood Upon The Hearth-rug And Picked Up The Stick Which Our Visitor Had Left Behind Him The Night Before.

We Have Much To Hope From The Flowers.

Exactly. She Does Not Shine As A Wife Even In Her Own Account Of What Occurred. I Am Not A Whole-souled Admirer Of Womankind, As You Are Aware, Watson, But My Experience Of Life Has Taught Me That There Are Few Wives Having Any Regard For Their Husbands Who Would Let Any Man's Spoken Word Stand Between Them And That Husband's Dead Body. Should I Ever Marry, Watson, I Should Hope To Inspire My Wife With Some Feeling Which Would Prevent Her From Being Walked Off By A Housekeeper When My Corpse Was Lying Within A Few Yards Of Her.

You Are My Heart, My Life, My One And Only Thought.

Wedding Anniversary

Eliminate All Other Factors, And The One Which Remains Must Be The Truth.

London, That Great Cesspool Into Which All The Loungers And Idlers Of The Empire Are Irresistibly Drained.

Anything Seems Commonplace, Once Explained.

Some Facts Should Be Suppressed, Or, At Least, A Just Sense Of Proportion Should Be Observed In Treating Them.

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 See Of Him In This World. - Watson.

I Feel That There Is Reason Lurking In You Somewhere, So We Will Patiently Grope Round For It.

...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 Drowsiness Of The Drug, And The Fierce Energy Of His Own Keen Nature.

Let Us Hear The Suspicions. I Will Look After The Proofs.

Clouds Of Insects Danced And Buzzed In The Golden Autumn Light, And The Air Was Full Of The Piping Of The Song-birds. Long, Glinting Dragonflies Shot Across The Path, Or Hung Tremulous With Gauzy Wings And Gleaming Bodies.

The Most Difficult Crime To Track Is The One Which Is Purposeless.

A Fine Horse Or A Beautiful Woman, I Cannot Look At Them Unmoved, Even Now When Seventy Winters Have Chilled My Blood.

Amberley Excelled At Chess - A Mark, Watson, Of A Scheming Mind.

Any Truth Is Better Than Indefinite Doubt.

I Can Never Bring You To Realize The Importance Of Sleeves, The Suggestiveness Of Thumb-nails, Or The Great Issues That May Hang From A Boot-lace.

I Have Wrought My Simple Plan If I Give One Hour Of Joy To The Boy Who’s Half A Man, Or The Man Who’s Half A Boy.

And Once Again Mr. Sherlock Holmes Is Free To Devote His Life To Examining Those Interesting Little Problems Which The Complexity Of Human Life So Pletifuly Presents.

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.

Where There Is No Imagination There Is No Horror.

Still, It Is An Error To Argue In Front Of Your Data. You Find Yourself Insensibly Twisting Them Round To Fit Your Theories.

Finding Yourself

The Whole Force Of The State Is At Your Back If You Should Need It. I'm Afraid That All The Queen's Horses And All The Queen's Men Cannot Avail In This Matter.

""dear Girl," Continued Bob Advancing With An Imbecile Grin Upon His Countenance, Which He Imagined No Doubt To Be A Seductive Smile, "fly With Me! Be Mine! Share With Me The Wild Free Life Of A Barrister! Say That You Return The Love Which Consumes My Heart - Oh, Say It!" Here Bob Put His Hand Over A Hole In His Waistcoat And Struck A Dramatic Attitude.

There Is Nothing More Stimulating Than A Case Where Everything Goes Against You.

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.

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 Can Get It If He Wants It.

It Was An Ideal Spring Day, A Light Blue Sky, Flecked With Little Fleecy White Clouds Drifting Across From West To East. The Sun Was Shining Very Brightly, And Yet There Was An Exhilarating Nip In The Air, Which Set An Edge To A Man's Energy.

A Trusty Comrade Is Always Of Use; And A Chronicler Still More So.

Of All Ghosts The Ghosts Of Our Old Loves Are The Worst.

He Spoke Wistfully Of A Sudden Leaving, A Breaking Of Old Ties, A Flight Into A Strange World, Ending In This Dreary Valley, And Ettie Listened, Her Dark Eyes Gleaming With Pity And With Sympathy - Those Two Qualities Which May Turn So Rapidly And So Naturally To Love.

Of All Ruins, That Of A Noble Mind Is The Most Deplorable.

For Strange Effects And Extraordinary Combinations We Must Go To Life Itself, Which Is Always Far More Daring Than Any Effort Of The Imagination.

Too Much! Wait Till You Have Lived Here Longer. Look Down The Valley! See The Cloud Of A Hundred Chimneys That Overshadows It! I Tell You That The Cloud Of Murder Hangs Thicker And Lower Than That Over The Heads Of The People. It Is The Valley Of Fear, The Valley Of Death. The Terror Is In The Hearts Of The People From The Dusk To The Dawn. Wait, Young Man, And You Will Learn For Yourself.

I Have Taken To Living By My Wits.

The Stage Lost A Fine Actor, Even As Science Lost An Acute Reasoner, When [holmes] Became A Specialist In Crime.

I Had Hardly Expected So Dolichocephalic A Skull Or Such Well-marked Supra-orbital Development. Would You Have Any Objection To My Running My Finger Along Your Parietal Fissure? A Cast Of Your Skull, Sir, Until The Original Is Available, Would Be An Ornament To Any Anthropological Museum. It Is Not My Intention To Be Fulsome, But I Confess That I Covet Your Skull.

...while The Individual Man Is An Insoluble Puzzle, In The Aggregate He Becomes A Mathematical Certainty.

It Seems Very Strange ... That In The Course Of The World's History So Obvious An Improvement Should Never Have Been Adopted. ... The Next Generation Of Britishers Would Be The Better For Having Had This Extra Hour Of Daylight In Their Childhood.

Far Away On The Path We Saw Sir Henry Looking Back, His Face White In The Moonlight, His Hands Raised In Horror, Glaring Helplessly At The Frightful Thing Which Was Hunting Him Down. But That Cry Of Pain From The Hound Had Blown All Our Fears To The Winds. If He Was Vulnerable He Was Mortal, And If We Could Wound Him We Could Kill Him. Never Have I Seen A Man Run As Holmes Ran That Night.

You Cannot See The Lettuce And The Dressing Without Suspecting A Salad.

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.

Unrequited Love

The Most Winning Woman I Ever Knew Was Hanged For Poisoning Three Little Children For Their Insurance-money, And The Most Repellent Man Of My Acquaintance Is A Philanthropist Who Has Spent Nearly A Quarter Of A Million Upon The London Poor.

Man, Or At Least Criminal Man, Has Lost All Enterprise And Originality. As To My Own Little Practice, It Seems To Be Degenerating Into An Agency For Recovering Lost Lead Pencils And Giving Advice To Young Ladies From Boarding-schools.

My Uncle, Mr. Stephen Maple, Had Been At The Same Time The Most Successful And The Least Respectable Of Our Family, So That We Hardly Knew Whether To Take Credit For His Wealth Or To Feel Ashamed Of His Position.

Dogmas Of Every Kind Put Assertion In The Place Of Reason And Give Rise To More Contention, Bitterness, And Want Of Charity Than Any Other Influence In Human Affairs.

Was It Hardness, Was It Selfishness, That She Should Ask Me To Risk My Life For Her Own Glorification? Such Thoughts May Come To Middle Age; But Never To Ardent Three-and-twenty In The Fever Of His First Love.

It Is A Mistake To Confound Strangeness With Mystery.

Desultory Readers Are Seldom Remarkable For The Exactness Of Their Learning.

Have You Tried To Drive A Harpoon Through A Body? No? Tut, Tut, My Dear Sir, You Must Really Pay Attention To These Details.

...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.

"i Should Have More Faith," He Said; "i Ought To Know By This Time That When A Fact Appears Opposed To A Long Train Of Deductions It Invariably Proves To Be Capable Of Bearing Some Other Interpretation."

Violence Does, In Truth, Recoil Upon The Violent, And The Schemer Falls Into The Pit Which He Digs For Another.

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.

The Most Dangerous Condition For A Man Or A Nation Is When His Intellectual Side Is More Developed Than His Spiritual. Is That Not Exactly The Condition Of The World Today?

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.

The Goose We Retained Until This Morning, When There Were Signs That, In Spite Of The Slight Frost, It Would Be Well That It Should Be Eaten Without Delay. Its Finder Has Carried It Off Therefore To Fulfil The Ultimate Destiny Of A Goose.

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