Arthur Conan Doyle

“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...”

“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. But I abhor the dull...”

“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 acc...”

“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 elbowi...”

“The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.”

“From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.”

“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 wa...”

“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 has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

“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 res...”

“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 t...”

“Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.”

“Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.”

“London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”

“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.”

“Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”

“A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.”

“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 trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.”