Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
My mind rebels at stagnation.
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.
But the Solar System!” I protested. “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.
Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has everything to do with it.
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval.
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.
The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.
Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you.
Work is the best antidote to sorrow.
Look at you. Why is the only woman you ever cared about a world-class criminal – are you a masochist?
Nothing is little to a great mind.
It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.
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.
Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang from his chair.
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. It’s smell and it’s 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.
You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?” “The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as– –” “My blushes, Watson!” Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice. “I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.” “A touch! A distinct touch!” cried Holmes. “You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.
So unworldly was he – or so capricious – that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.
I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart.
When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it.