"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."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
"The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
"What can be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?"
"I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt find waiting for us."
Watson and Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
"Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colorless in mind as well as in feature. She impressed me neither favorably nor the reverse. She was a nonentity."
Violet Hunter, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake, and whether he derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their power."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.
From "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"
"We are going well," said he, looking out the window and glancing at his watch. "Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour."
"I have not observed the quarter-mile posts," said I.
"Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards apart, and the calculation is a simple one."
Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in "Silver Blaze"
"Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person."
Sherlock Holmes, in "Silver Blaze"
"It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence."
Sherlock Holmes, in "Silver Blaze"
"The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact -- of absolute undeniable fact -- from the embellishments of theorists and reporters."
Sherlock Holmes, in "Silver Blaze"
"See the value of imagination," said Holmes. "It is the one quality which Gregory lacks. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed."
Sherlock Holmes, in "Silver Blaze"
"At least you have his assurance that your horse will run," said I.
"Yes, I have his assurance," said the Colonel, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I should prefer to have the horse."
Watson and Colonel Ross, in "Silver Blaze"
"Is there any 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.
Inspector Gregory and Holmes, in "Silver Blaze"
And this not so much for the sake of his reputations -- for, indeed, it was when he was at his wits' end that his energy and his versatility were most admirable -- but because where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever without a conclusion.
From "The Yellow Face"
Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise's sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself save when there was some professional object to be served.
From "The Yellow Face"
"My dear Mr. Grant Munro--" began Holmes.
Our visitor sprang from his char. "What!" he cried, "you know my mane?"
"If you wish to preserve your incognito,' said Holmes, smiling, "I would suggest that you cease to write your name upon the lining of your hat, or else that you turn the crown towards the person whom you are addressing."
Sherlock Holmes and Grant Munro, in "The Yellow Face"
"Upon my word, Watson, there is something very attractive about that livid face at the window, and I would not have missed the case for worlds."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Yellow Face"
"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Yellow Face"
"Watson," said he, "if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Yellow Face"
The public not unnaturally goes on the principle that he who would heal others must himself be whole, and looks askance at the curative powers of the man whose own case is beyond the reach of his drugs.
Watson, in "The Stock-Brocker's Clerk"
"I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Stock-Brocker's Clerk"
"I sent in my testimonial and application, but without the least hope of getting it. Back came an answer by return, saying that if I would appear next Monday I might take over my new duties at once, provided that my appearance was satisfactory. No one knows how these things are worked. Some people say that the manager just plunges his hand into the heap and takes the first that comes."
Hall Pycroft, in "The Stock-Brocker's Clerk"
"Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson. You see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns that his neck is forfeited."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Stock-Brocker's Clerk"
"I don't know how you manage this, Mr. Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of fact and of fancy would be children in your hands."
Trevor senior, in "The 'Gloria Scott'"
An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.
From "The Musgrave Ritual"
The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs.
Watson, in "The Musgrave Ritual"
I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.
Watson, in "The Musgrave Ritual"
Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places.
From "The Musgrave Ritual"
"It is rather an absurd business, this ritual of ours," he answered. "But it has at least the saving grace of antiquity to excuse it."
Reginald Musgrave, in "The Musgrave Ritual"
"You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man's place and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances. In this case the matter was simplified by Brunton's intelligence being quite first-rate, so that it was unnecessary to make any allowance for the personal equation, as the astronomers have dubbed it."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Musgrave Ritual"