Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there, in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man's handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot the fields.
From "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"
"It is indeed, Mr. Holmes. I've had a bustling afternoon, I promise you. Did you see anything of the Yoxley case in the latest editions?"
"I've seen nothing later than the fifteenth century to-day."
Stanley Hopkins and Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez"
Holmes rose. Taking the forms, he carried them over to the window and carefully examined that which was uppermost.
"It is a pity he did not write in pencil," said he, throwing them down again with a shrug of disappointment. "As you have no doubt frequently observed, Watson, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage."
From "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter"
"He is big enough and old enough to look after himself, and if he is so foolish as to lose himself, I entirely refuse to accept the responsibility of hunting for him."
Lord Mount-James, on his nephew, in "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter"
"Come, Watson," said he, and we passed from that house of grief into the pale sunlight of the winter day.
Sherlock Holmes's words in the last paragraph of "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter"
"Come, Watson, come!" he cried. "The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
"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."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
"We have not yet met our Waterloo, Watson, but this is our Marengo, for it begins in defeat and ends in victory."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
"Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"
"And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose -- that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Second Stain"
"I am inclined to think--" said I.
"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.
Opening lines of "The Valley of Fear"
"You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"
"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--"
"My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.
"I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public."
"A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself.
Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in "The Valley of Fear"
"But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are uttering libel in the eyes of the law -- and there lie the glory and the wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations -- that's the man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"Is he not the celebrated author of the Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing it?"
Sherlock Holmes, on Professor Moriarty, in "The Valley of Fear"
"But what can he do?"
"Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the first brains of Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities."
Watson and Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"The next sign is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?"
"Chapter the second, no doubt."
"Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable."
Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in "The Valley of Fear"
"Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac. It is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I remember right, quite garrulous towards the end."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"There, Watson! What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius ...
Watson, in "The Valley of Fear"
"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles -- even Professor Moriarty. ... The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"Well, Holmes," I murmured, "have you found anything out?"
He stood beside me in silence, his candle in his hand. Then the tall, lean figure inclined towards me. "I say, Watson," he whispered, "would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?"
"Not in the least," I answered in astonishment.
"Ah, that's lucky," he said, and not another word would he utter that night.
From "The Valley of Fear"
"Breadth of view, my dear Mr. Mac, is one of the essentials of our profession. The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"The blunt accusation, the brutal tap upon the shoulder -- what can one make of such a denouement? But the quick inference, the subtle trap, the clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories -- are these not the pride and the justification of our life's work?"
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
"A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer -- an absurd extravagance of energy -- but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Valley of Fear"
Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger. "Do not tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that no one can ever get level with this king devil?"
"No, I don't say that," said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be looking far into the future. "I don't say that he can't be beat. But you must give me time -- you must give me time!"
We all sat in silence for some minutes while those fateful eyes still strained to pierce the veil.
The final paragraphs of "The Valley of Fear"
The friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be glad to learn that he is still alive and well, though somewhat crippled by occasional attacks of rheumatism. He has, for many years, lived in a small farm upon the downs five miles from Eastbourne, where his time is divided between philosophy and agriculture. During this period of rest he has refused the most princely offers to take up various cases, having determined that his retirement was a permanent one.
From the preface to the collection His Last Bow.
"My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built. Life is commonplace; the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge"
"I'm bound to say that I make nothing of the note except that there was something on hand, and that a woman, as usual, was at the bottom of it."
Inspector Baynes, in "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge"
"Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge"
"Well, well! What next?" said he. "Brother Mycroft is coming round."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. His Pall Mall lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall -- that is his cycle. Once, and only once, he has been here. What upheaval can possibly have derailed him?"
Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"
All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.
Sherlock Holmes, on his brother Mycroft, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"
"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Sherlock Holmes, in "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans"