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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

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Do You Remember What

Arthur Conan Doyle

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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.

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To Underestimate Oneself Is As Much An Exaggeration Of One's Powers Than The Other.

It Was Easier To Know It Than To Explain Why I Know It. If You Were Asked To Prove That Two And Two Made Four, You Might Find Some Difficulty, And Yet You Are Quite Sure Of The Fact. ~ Sherlock Holmes

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.

It Is A Mistake To Confound Strangeness With Mystery.

"i Have Seen Those Symptoms Before," Said Holmes, Throwing His Cigarette Into The Fire. "oscillation Upon The Pavement Always Means An Affaire De Coeur."

To That Providence, My Sons, I Hereby Commend You, And I Counsel You By Way Of Caution To Forbear From Crossing The Moor In Those Dark Hours When The Powers Of Evil Are Exalted.

So Complex Is The Human Spirit That It Can Itself Scarce Discern The Deep Springs Which Impel It To Action.

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.

I Have Heard, Mr. Holmes, That You Can See Deeply Into The Manifold Wickedness Of The Human Heart.

I Felt Holmes's Hand Steal Into Mine And Give Me A Reassuring Shake. - Watson

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.

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?

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

A Hound It Was, An Enormous Coal-black Hound, But Not Such A Hound As Mortal Eyes Have Ever Seen. Fire Burst From Its Open Mouth, Its Eyes Glowed With A Smouldering Glare, Its Muzzle And Hackles And Dewlap Were Outlined In Flickering Flame. Never In The Delirious Dream Of A Disordered Brain Could Anything More Savage, More Appalling, More Hellish Be Conceived Than That Dark Form And Savage Face Which Broke Upon Us Out Of The Wall Of Fog.

The Fair Sex Is Your Department.

I'm Not A Psychopath, I'm A Fully Functioning Sociopath. Do Your Research.

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.

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

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

It Is Of The Highest Importance In The Art Of Detection To Be Able To Recognise Out Of A Number Of Facts Which Are Incidental And Which Are Vital.

It Has Long Been An Axiom Of Mine That The Little Things Are Infinitely The Most Important.

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

The More We Progress The More We Tend To Progress. We Advance Not In Arithmetical But In Geometrical Progression. We Draw Compound Interest On The Whole Capital Of Knowledge And Virtue Which Has Been Accumulated Since The Dawning Of Time.

When Such Men, Who Are Beyond Hope And Fear, Begin In Their Dim Minds To See The Source Their Woes, It May Be An Evil Time For Those Who Have Wronged Them. The Weak Man Becomes Strong When He Has Nothing, For Then Only Can He Feel The Wild, Mad Thrill Of Despair.

An Absence Of Antecedents And Of Relatives Is Sometimes An Aid Rather Than An Impediment To Social Advancement . . .

The Future Was With Fate. The Present Was Our Own.

Skill Is Fine, And Genius Is Splendid, But The Right Contacts Are More Valuable Than Either.

Ex-professor Moriarty Of Mathematical Celebrity... Is The Napoleon Of Crime, Watson.

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

The Mighty Voice Of Canada Will Ever Call To Me.

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.

His Incredible Untidiness, His Addiction To Music At Strange Hours, His Occasional Revolver Practice Within Doors, His Weird And Often Malodorous Scientific Experiments, And The Atmosphere Of Violence And Danger Which Hung Around Him Made Him The Very Worst Tenant In London.

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

The Soul Is Swayed By The Waters.

I Have My Own Views About Nature's Methods, Though I Feel That It Is Rather Like A Beetle Giving His

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 Equally Uncompromising Manner To Something Entirely Different

So Tomorrow We Disappear Into The Unknown. This Account I Am Transmitting Down The River By Canoe, And It May Be Our Last Word To Those Who Are Interested In Our Fate.

Well, Sir, Let Us Do What We Can To Curtail This Visit, Which Can Hardly Be Agreeable To You, And Is Inexpressibly Irksome To Me.

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.

Three Quiet Days. This Hell Fiend Is Like A Cat With A Mouse. She Lets Me Loose Only To Pounce Upon Me Again. I Am Never So Frightened As When Every Thing Is Still.

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

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.

I Am Engaged In Answering That Italian Buffoon, Mazotti, Whose Views Upon The Larval Development Of The Tropical Termites Have Excited My Derision And Contempt . . .

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.

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

I Have Mastered The Principles Of Several Religions. They Have All Shocked Me By The Violence Which I Should Have To Do To My Reason To Accept The Dogmas Of Any One Of Them.

What The Deuce Is It To Me?" He Interrupted Impatiently: "you Say That We Go Round The Sun. If We Went Round The Moon It Would Not Make A Pennyworth Of Difference To Me Or To My Work.

I Fear That If The Matter Is Beyond Humanity, It Is Certainly Beyond Me.

Nothing Clears Up A Case So Much As Stating It To Another Person.

Steel True, Blade Straight.

Philosophy, Astronomy, And Politics Were Marked At Zero, I Remember. Botany Variable, Geology Profound As Regards The Mud Stains From Any Region Within Fifty Miles Of Town, Chemistry Eccentric, Anatomy Unsystematic, Sensational Literature And Crime Records Unique, Violin Player, Boxer, Swordsman, Lawyer, And Self-poisoner By Cocaine And Tobacco.

Come, Watson, Come!" He Cried. The Game Is Afoot.

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. [...] It Is A Mistake To Think That That Little Room Has Elastic Walls And Can Distend To Any Extent. [...] It Is Of The Highest Importance, Therefore, Not To Have Useless Facts Elbowing Out The Useful Ones.

Just As An Octopus May Have His Den In Some Ocean Cave, And Come Floating Out A Silent Image Of Horror To Attack A Swimmer, So I Picture Such A Spirit Lurking In The Dark Of The House Which He Curses By His Presence, And Ready To Float Out Upon All Whom He Can Injure.

You Will, I Am Sure, Agree With Me That... If Page 534 Only Finds Us In The Second Chapter, The Length Of The First One Must Have Been Really Intolerable.

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

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

Any Truth Is Better Than Indefinite Doubt.

There Are No Fools So Troublesome As Those Who Have Some Wit.

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.

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.

It Is Stupidity Rather Than Courage To Refuse To Recognize Danger When It Is Close Upon You.

It Is Fortunate For This Community That I Am Not A Criminal.

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.

We Can't Command Our Love, But We Can Our Actions.

It Is Not Really Difficult To Construct A Series Of Inferences, Each Dependent Upon Its Predecessor And Each Simple In Itself. If, After Doing So, One Simply Knocks Out All The Central Inferences And Presents One's Audience With The Starting-point And The Conclusion, One May Produce A Startling, Though Perhaps A Meretricious, Effect.

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.

Life, It Turns Out, Is Infinitely More Clever And Adaptable Than Anyone Had Ever Supposed.

The Setting Is A Worthy One, If The Devil Did Desire To Have A Hand In The Affairs Of Men.

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

It Is All In The Way Of Professional Experience.

Professional Experience

Streams May Spring From One Source, And Yet Some Be Clear And Some Be Foul.

Violence Is Sometimes A Duty.

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

We Balance Probabilities And Choose The Most Likely. It Is The Scientific Use Of The Imagination.

The More Outré And Grotesque An Incident Is The More Carefully It Deserves To Be Examined.

It Is, Of Course, A Trifle, But There Is Nothing So Important As Trifles.

For The One And Only Time I Caught A Glimpse Of A Great Heart As Well As Of A Great Brain.

There Are Fifty Who Can Reason Synthetically For One Who Can Reason Analytically.

As Cuvier Could Correctly Describe A Whole Animal By The Contemplation Of A Single Bone, So The Observer Who Has Thoroughly Understood One Link In A Series Of Incidents Should Be Able To Accurately State All The Other Ones, Both Before And After.

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

Critics Kind Never Mind! Critics Flatter No Matter! Critics Blame All The Same! Do Your Best Damn The Rest!

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.

The Ideal Reasoner, He Remarked, Would, When He Had Once Been Shown A Single Fact In All Its Bearings, Deduce From It Not Only All The Chain Of Events Which Led Up To It But Also All The Results Which Would Follow From It.

In The Year 1878 I Took My Degree Of Doctor Of Medicine Of The University Of London, And Proceeded To Netley To Go Through The Course Prescribed For Surgeons In The Army. Having Completed My Studies There, I Was Duly Attached To The Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers As Assistant Surgeon.

My Business Is That Of Every Other Good Citizen - To Uphold The Law.

It Is Hardly Fair To Blame America For The State Of San Francisco, For Its Population Is Cosmopolitan And Its Seaport Attracts The Floating Vice Of The Pacific; But Be The Cause What It May, There Is Much Room For Spiritual Betterment.

I Have Taken To Living By My Wits.

The Times Is A Paper Which Is Seldom Found In Any Hands But Those Of The Highly Educated.

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

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

A Sandwich And A Cup Of Coffee, And Then Off To Violin-land, Where All Is Sweetness And Delicacy And Harmony.

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

Well, I'm A Bacteriologist, You Know. I Live In A Nine-hundred-diameter Microscope. I Can Hardly Claim To Take Serious Notice Of Anything That I Can See With My Naked Eye.

I Do Hate The City Of London! It Is The Only Thing Which Ever Comes Between Us.

Brothers Are A Blessing For One Thing. There Is No Possibility Of Any Young Lady Getting Unreasonably Conceited If She Be Endowed With Them.

The Unexpected Has Happened So Continually In My Life That It Has Ceased To Deserve The Name.

I Think You Want A Little Unofficial Help. Three Undetected Murders In One Year Won't Do, Lestrade. But You Handled The Molesey Mystery With Less Than Your Usual - That's To Say, You Handled It Fairly Well.

It Is Quite A Three-pipe Problem.

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.

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.

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

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.

'it Is My Duty To Warn You That It Will Be Used Against You,' Cried The Inspector, With The Magnificent Fair Play Of The British Criminal Law.

It Is, I Admit, Mere Imagination; But How Often Is Imagination The Mother Of Truth?

"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."

It Is A Mistake To Confound Strangeness With Mystery. The Most Commonplace Crime Is Often The Most Mysterious Because It Presents No New Or Special Features From Which Deductions May Be Drawn. This Murder Would Have Been Infinitely More Difficult To Unravel Had The Body Of The Victim Been Simply Found Lying In The Roadway Without Any Of Those Outré And Sensational Accompaniments Which Have Rendered It Remarkable. These Strange Details, Far From Making The Case More Difficult, Have Really Had The Effect Of Making It Less So.

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

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.

Living, As I Do, In An Educated And Scientific Atmosphere, I Could Not Have Conceived That The First Principles Of Zoology Were So Little Known. Is It Possible That You Do Not Know The Elementary Fact In Comparative Anatomy, That The Wing Of A Bird Is Really The Forearm, While The Wing Of A Bat Consists Of Three Elongated Fingers With Membranes Between?

Several Incidents In My Life Have Convinced Me Of Spiritual Interposition - Of The Promptings Of Some Beneficent Force Outside Ourselves, Which Tries To Help Us Where It Can.

The Love Of Books Is Among The Choicest Gifts Of The Gods.

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.

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?

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.

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.

You See, But You Do Not Observe.

The World Is Full Of Obvious Things Which Nobody By Any Chance Ever Observes.

Then Away Out In The Woods I Heard That Kind Of A Sound That A Ghost Makes When It Wants To Tell About Something That's On Its Mind And Can't Make Itself Understood, And So Can't Rest Easy In Its Grave, And Has To Go About That Way Every Night Grieving. As You Value Your Life Or Your Reason Keep Away From The Moor.

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

At The Moment Our Human World Is Based On The Suffering And Destruction Of Millions Of Non-humans. To Perceive This And To Do Something To Change It In Personal And Public Ways Is To Undergo A Change Of Perception Akin To A Religious Conversion. Nothing Can Ever Be Seen In Quite The Same Way Again Because Once You Have Admitted The Terror And Pain Of Other Species You Will, Unless You Resist Conversion, Be Always Aware Of The Endless Permutations Of Suffering That Support Our Society.

If The Fresh Facts Come To Our Knowledge All Fit Themselves Into The Scheme, Then Our Hypothesis May Gradually Become A Solution. Sherlock Holmes Speaking With Dr. Watson.

One Must Wait Till It Comes.

There Is Nothing In Which Deduction Is So Necessary As In 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 Colour 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.

Might I Trouble You To Open The Window, For Chloroform Vapour Does Not Help The Palate.

I Am Not A Very Good Man, Effie, But I Think That I Am A Better One Than You Have Given Me Credit For Being.

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.

It Is A Great Thing To Start Life With A Small Number Of Really Good Books Which Are Your Very Own.

Your Life Is Not Your Own. Keep Your Hands Off It.

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 Least,’ I Answered In Astonishment. ‘ah, That’s Lucky,’ He Said, And Not Another Word Would He Utter That Night.

Depend Upon It, There Is Nothing So Unnatural As The Commonplace.

Populus Me Sibilat, At Mihi Plaudo Ipse Domi Stimul Ac Nummos Contemplar In Arca. (the Public Hiss At Me, But I Cheer Myself When In My Own House I Contemplate The Coins In My Strong-box.)

When The Spirits Are Low, When The Day Appears Dark, When Work Becomes Monotonous, When Hope Hardly Seems Worth Having, Just Mount A Bicycle And Go Out For A Spin Down The Road, Without Thought On Anything But The Ride You Are Taking.

We Had Got As Far As This, When Who Should Walk In But The Gentleman Himself, Who Had Been Drinking His Beer In The Taproom And Had Heard The Whole Conversation. Who Was I? What Did I Want? What Did I Mean By Asking Questions? He Had A Fine Flow Of Language, And His Adjectives Were Very Vigorous.

Once Or Twice In My Career I Feel That I Have Done More Real Harm By My Discovery Of The Criminal Than Ever He Had Done By His Crime. I Have Learned Caution Now, And I Had Rather Play Tricks With The Law Of England Than With My Own Conscience.

A Study Of Family Portraits Is Enough To Convert A Man To The Theory Of Reincarnation.

Anything Seems Commonplace, Once Explained.

Love Has Been Taken Away From The Poets, And Has Been Brought Within The Domain Of True Science. It May Prove To Be One Of The Great Cosmic Elementary Forces. When The Atom Of Hydrogen Draws The Atom Of Chlorine Towards It To Form The Perfected Molecule Of Hydrochloric Acid, The Force Which It Exerts May Be Intrinsically Similar To That Which Draws Me To You. Attraction And Repulsion Appear To Be The Primary Forces. This Is Attraction.

It Is Not That I Think Or Believe, But That I Know.

Watson. Come At Once If Convenient. If Inconvenient, Come All The Same.

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

Ah! My Dear Watson, There We Come Into Those Realms Of Conjecture, Where The Most Logical Mind May Be At Fault. Sherlock Holmes Speaking With Dr. Watson.

It Is A Capital Mistake To Theorize Before You Have All The Evidence. It Biases The Judgment.

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

'there's No Need For Fiction In Medicine,' Remarks Foster... 'for The Facts Will Always Beat Anything You Fancy.'

He Is Not A Bad Fellow, Though An Absolute Imbecile In His Profession. He Has One Positive Virtue. He Is As Brave As A Bulldog And As Tenacious As A Lobster If He Gets His Claws Upon Anyone.

There Is But One Step From The Grotesque To The Horrible.

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.

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.

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.

It’s Every Man’s Business To See Justice Done.

When A Doctor Does Go Wrong He Is The First Of Criminals. He Has Nerve And He Has Knowledge.

What A Lovely Thing A Rose Is!

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.

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

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.

You Know My Method. It Is Founded Upon The Observation Of Trifles.

Data!data!data!" He Cried Impatiently. "i Can't Make Bricks Without Clay.

Beyond The Obvious Facts That He Has At Some Time Done Manual Labour, That He Takes Snuff, That He Is A Freemason, That He Has Been In China, And That He Has Done A Considerable Amount Of Writing Lately, I Can Deduce Nothing Else.

I Am Not The Law, But I Represent Justice So Far As My Feeble Powers Go.

While The Individual Man Is An Insoluble Puzzle, In The Aggregate He Becomes A Mathematical Certainty. You Can, For Example, Never Foretell What Any One Man Will Be Up To, But You Can Say With Precision What An Average Number Will Be Up To. Individuals Vary, But Percentages Remain Constant. So Says The Statistician.

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

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

I Cannot Live Without Brainwork. What Else Is There To Live For? Stand At The Window Here. Was Ever Such A Dreary, Dismal, Unprofitable World? See How The Yellow Fog Swirls Down The Street And Drifts Across The Duncoloured Houses. What Could Be More Hopelessly Prosaic And Material?

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

Life, My Dear Watson, Is Infinitely Stranger Than Fiction; Stranger Than Anything Which The Mind Of Man Could Invent. We Could Not Conceive The Things That Are Merely Commonplace To Existence. If We Could Hover Over This Great City, Remove The Roofs, And Peep In At The Things Going On, It Would Make All Fiction, With Its Conventionalities And Foreseen Conclusions Flat, Stale And Unprofitable.

Let Me Run Over The Principal Steps. We Approached The Case, You Remember, With An Absolutely Blank Mind, Which Is Always An Advantage. We Had Formed No Theories. We Were Simply There To Observe And To Draw Inferences From Our Observations.

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.

Hot Hate Is Twin Brother To Hot Love.

It Isn't True That The Laws Of Nature Have Been Capriciously Disturbed; That Snakes Have Talked; That Women Have Been Turned Into Salt; That Rods Have Brought Water Out Of Rocks.

If You Had Killed Watson, You Would Not Have Got Out Of This Room Alive.

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.

He Foresaw That She Would Be Very Much More Useful To Him In The Character Of A Free Woman.

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.

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.

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.

What A Creature He Was! Never Have I Felt Such A Horse Between My Knees. His Great Haunches Gathered Under Him With Every Stride, And He Shot Forward Ever Faster And Faster, Stretched Like A Greyhound, While The Windbeat In My Face And Whistled Past My Ears.

It Is Quite A Three Pipe Problem, And I Beg That You Won't Speak To Me For Fifty Minutes.

It Is An Old Maxim Of Mine That When You Have Excluded The Impossible, Whatever Remains, However Improbable, Must Be The Truth.

You Mentioned Your Name As If I Should Recognize It, But Beyond The Obvious Facts That You Are A Bachelor, A Solicitor, A Freemason, And An Asthmatic, I Know Nothing Whatever About You.

The Press, Watson, Is A Most Valuable Institution, If You Only Know How To Use It.

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.

"dr. Munro, Sir," Said He, "i Am A Walking Museum. You Could Fit What Isn't The Matter With Me On To The Back Of A -- Visiting Card. If There's Any Complaint You Want To Make A Special Study Of, Just You Come To Me, Sir, And See What I Can Do For You. It's Not Every One That Can Say That He Has Had Cholera Three Times, And Cured Himself By Living On Red Pepper And Brandy."

If I Had Never Touched Holmes, Who Has Tended To Obscure My Higher Work, My Position In Literature Would At The Present Moment Be A More Commanding One.

As A Rule, Said Holmes, 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.

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?

The Emotional Qualities Are Antagonistic To Clear Reasoning.

It Seems To Leave The Darkness Rather Blacker Than Before.

There Is A Soul-jealousy That Can Be As Frantic As Any Body-jealousy.

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

...it Was A Huge Creature, Luminous, Ghastly, And Spectral. I Have Cross-examined These Men, One Of Them A Hard-headed Countryman, One A Farrier, And One A Moorland Farmer, Who All Tell The Same Story Of This Dreadful Apparition, Exactly Corresponding To The Hell-hound Of The Legend. I Assure You That There Is A Reign Of Terror In The District, And That It Is A Hardy Man Who Will Cross The Moor At Night.

Where There Is No Imagination There Is No Horror.

Depend Upon It There Comes A Time When For Every Addition Of Knowledge You Forget Something That You Knew Before. It Is Of The Highest Importance, Therefore, Not To Have Useless Facts Elbowing Out The Useful Ones.

I Rose To Go, But Holmes Caught Me By My Wrist And Pushed Me Back Into My Chair. 'it Is Both, Or None,' Said He. 'you May Say Before This Gentleman Anything Which You May Say To Me.

But Love Is An Emotional Thing, And Whatever Is Emotional Is Opposed To That True Cold Reason Which I Place Above All Things.

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.

Crime Is Common. Logic Is Rare. Therefore It Is Upon The Logic Rather Than Upon The Crime That You Should Dwell.

There Are Always Some Lunatics About. It Would Be A Dull World Without Them.

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