Quotes By Arthur Conan Doyle

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.

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 elbowing out the useful ones.

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

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.

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

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 routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

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

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

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

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 the most difficult to identify.

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

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.

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

Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example.

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 is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

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.

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

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

I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.

We can't command our love, but we can our actions.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.

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.