Sherlock Holmes Quotes

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

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

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

No ghosts need

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

There is an undeniable exhilaration in moment of even the smallest discovery

~ Graham Moore

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.

~ 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. 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

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I give you full credit for the discovery, I crawl, I grovel, my name is Watson, and you need not say what you were just going to say, because I admit it all.

~ Dorothy L. Sayers

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.

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

~ 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. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

There it was: a full confession. Sherlock Holmes had done it again, and as I marveled at my devastating powers of deduction, I wished there had been two of me so I could have patted myself on the back. I know it sounds arrogant, but how often does one achieve a mental triumph of that magnitude? After listening to her speak just two words, I had nailed the whole bloody thing. If Watson had been there, he would have been shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

~ Paul Auster

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

~ Arthur Conan Doyle

A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221 1/2 B Baker Street and didn't find

~ Rex Stout

You cannot help being a female, and I should be something of a fool were I to discount your talents merely because of their housing.

~ Laurie R. King