Quotes from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“if i could be assured of your destruction, i would in the interest of the public, cheerfully accept my death.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained observer to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“It is easy to be wise after the event.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth?”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“My line of thoughts about dogs is analogous. A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones. And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“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. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson,”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I had,” said he, “come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other.  I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection.  So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us .”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Let me say right here, Mr. Holmes, that money is nothing to me in this case. You can burn it if it’s any use in lighting you to the truth. This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and it’s up to you to do it. Name your figure!
My professional charges are upon a fixed scale, I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“Who are you, then?” “My name is Sherlock Holmes.” “Good Lord!” “You have heard of me, I see.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“My brain has always governed my heart" Sherlock Holmes”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“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.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I am inclined to think--” said I. “I should do so,” Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently. I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I’ll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. “Really, Holmes,” said I severely, “you are a little trying at times.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Complete Sherlock Holmes

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Popular quotes

“he said that for wickedness to succeed all it takes is for decent people to do nothing.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from Pandora's Star

“In your madness you said you loved me," she murmured shyly.

His humor fled, and the smile left her lips as she continued, "You said it before, too. When the storm struck, I asked you to love me, and you said you did." Her voice was the barest of whispers.

Ruark's gaze turned away from her, and he rubbed the bandage on his leg before he spoke. "Strange that madness should speak the truth, but truth it is." He met her questioning eyes directly. "Aye, I love you." The pain of longing marked his face with a momentary sadness. "And that is madness, in all truth."

Shanna raised herself form his side and sat on her heels, staring down at him. "Why do you love me?" Her tone was wondrous. "I beset you at every turn. I deny you as a fit mate. I have betrayed you into slavery and worse. There is no sanity in your plea at all. How can you love me?"

"Shanna! Shanna! Shanna!" he sighed, placing his fingers on her hand and gently tracing the lines of her finely boned fingers. "What man would boast the wisdom of his love? How many time has this world heard, 'I don't care, I love.' Do I count your faults and sins to tote them in a book?"

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"I dream of unbelievable softness. I remember warmth at my side the likes of which can set my heart afire. I see in the dark before me softly glowing eyes of aqua, once tender in a moment of love, then flashing with defiance and anger, now dark and blue with some stirring I know I have caused, now green and gay with laughter spilling from them. There is a form within my arms that I tenderly held and touched. There is that one who has met my passion with her own and left me gasping."

Ruark caressed Shanna's arm and turned her face to him, making her look into his eyes and willing her to see the truth in them as he spoke.

"My beloved Shanna. I cannot think of betrayal when I think of love. I can count no denials when I hold you close. I only wait for that day when you will say, 'I love."

Shanna raised her hands as if to plead her case then let them fall dejectedly on her knees. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she begged helplessly, "But I do not want to love you." She began to sob. "You are a colonial. You are untitled, a murderer condemned, a rogue, a slave. I want a name for my children. I want so much more of my husband." She rolled her eyes in sudden confusion. "And I do not want to hurt you more."

Ruark sighed and gave up for the moment. He reached out and gently wiped away the tears as they fell. "Shanna, love," he whispered tenderly, "I cannot bear to see you cry. I will not press the matter for a while. I only beg you remember the longest journey is taken a step at a time. My love can wait, but it will neither yield nor change.”
― Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, quote from Shanna

“We all have the capacity to find the will to do what must be done - even when that which we must do terrifies us most. Remember this.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Enticed

“She stood with her nose up, sniffing delightedly. It was the delicious mildewy fragrance of old books. Hundreds of them, she saw, looking round the room. Books were lined up on shelves on all four walls, stacked on the floor, and piled on the desk, old books in leather covers mostly, although some of the ones on the floor had newer looking colored jackets.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from House of Many Ways

“We're human, after all, and everybody's got something a little off somewhere.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from The Elephant Vanishes

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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