All Quotes

""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."

"You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious."

"I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water."

"Work is the best antidote to sorrow."

"There is no prospect of danger, or I should not dream of stirring out without you."

"What one man can invent another can discover."

"It was vain to urge that his time was already fully occupied, for the young lady had come with the determination to tell her story, and it was evident that nothing short of force could get her out of the room until she had done so. With a resigned air and a somewhat weary smile, Holmes begged the beautiful intruder to take a seat and to inform us what it was that was troubling her."

"We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the tap-room and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious back-hander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much more profitable than your own."

"I have never been in Africa in my life, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Busybody Holmes!"

"It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong."

"We're not jealous of you down at Scotland Yard. No, sir, we are proud of you, and if you come down to-morrow there's not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn't be glad to shake you by the hand."

"There can be no question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast."

"One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it. It is the first rule of criminal investigation."

"Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs."

"For once you have fallen low. Let us see, in the future, how high you can rise."

"There is so much red tape in these matters."

"Dr Leslie Armstrong "I have heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I am aware of your profession — one of which I by no means approve."Holmes "In that, Doctor, you will find yourself in agreement with every criminal in the country.""

"A draghound will follow aniseed from here to John o' Groat's, and our friend, Armstrong, would have to drive through the Cam before he would shake Pompey off his trail."

"Come, Watson, come!" he cried. "The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

"Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand."

"What I know is unofficial; what he knows is official."

"Now, Watson, the fair sex is your department."

"Only one important thing has happened in the last three days, and that is that nothing has happened."

"It is a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts."

""I am inclined to think -- " said I."

"What do you make of it, Holmes?" "It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information." "But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?"

"The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous and terse, but limited."

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

"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."

"Think of Mycroft's note, of the Admiralty, the Cabinet, the exalted person who waits for news. We are bound to go." My answer was to rise from the table. "You are right, Holmes. We are bound to go."

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

"Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win."

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

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