Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.
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.
There was a brisk northern wind, heavy and wet with the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned his face to it, fresh life and strength surging in his blood and bracing his limbs.
A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.
There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.
Dogs don’t make mistakes.
Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.
When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.
My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.
There is a soul-jealousy that can be as frantic as any body-jealousy.
The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.
Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.
When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.
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.
Every man finds his limitations, Mr. Holmes, but at least it cures us of the weakness of self-satisfaction.
We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.
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.
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.
His neighbor is a tooth-drawer. That bag at his girdle is full of the teeth that he drew at Winchester fair. I warrant that there are more sound ones than sorry, for he is quick at his work and a trifle dim in the eye.
Streams may spring from one source and yet some may be clear and some be foul.