"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."

"There should be no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation."

"Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy Edwards!"

"There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible."

"There is no part of the body which varies so much as the human ear."

"Education never ends Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last."

""Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. S. H." It was a nice equipment for a respectable citizen to carry through the dim, fog-draped streets."

"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible!"

"Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem."

"You fidget me beyond endurance. You, a doctor — you are enough to drive a patient into an asylum."

"Holmes, you are not yourself. A sick man is but a child."

"This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply."

"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "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."

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles."

"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."

"It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this, I have endeavoured in my case to do."

"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 wants it."

"It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles."

"It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes’ requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such a quiet air of mastery."

"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences."

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know."

""You are Holmes, the meddler." My friend smiled. "Holmes, the busybody!" His smile broadened. "Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!" Holmes chuckled heartily."

"When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has the nerve and he has the knowledge."

"Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another."

"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Data! Data! Data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."

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

"I am glad of all details," remarked my friend, "whether they seem to you to be relevant or not."

"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."

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

"It is more than possible; it is probable."

"That is the case as it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still."

""Is there any other 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."

"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain. Results without causes are much more impressive."

"It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated."

""I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom." "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he."

"Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic."

"Out of my last 53 cases 49 have been given full credit to the police and the rest to me."

"If I were assured of your eventual destruction I would, in the interests of the public, cheerfully accept my own."

"He is the Napoleon of crime."

"Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill."

"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

"We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination."

"There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you."

"Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr. Mortimer has read to us, and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted."