“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
“Everything comes in circles. [...] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.”
“I say, Watson,’ he whispered, ‘would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as 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.”
“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.”
“It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?”
“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?”
“Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy Edwards!”
“The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”
“here at last there was a fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Dark nights are unpleasant,"
"Yes, for strangers to travel,"
"The clouds are heavy."
"Yes, a storm is approaching.”
“The interplay of ideas and the oblique uses of knowledge are often of extraordinary interest. You”
“Lying across his chest was a curious weapon, a shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers. It was clear that this had been fired at close range and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together, so as to make the simultaneous discharge more destructive.”
“The funds are good at the moment," said the treasurer, with the bankbook in front of him. "The firms have been generous of late. Max Linder & Co. paid five hundred to be left alone. Walker Brothers sent in a hundred; but I took it on myself to return it and ask for five. If I do not hear by Wednesday, their winding gear may get out of order. We had to burn their breaker last year before they became reasonable. Then the West Section Coaling Company has paid its annual contribution. We have enough on hand to meet any obligations." "What”
“Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. 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.”
“The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.”
“I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful that it was welcome to my somewhat jangled nerves.”
“İnsan ne tuhaf bir yaratıktır. Cinayetle haşır neşir, kim bilir kaç kez bir ailenin babasının, gözü yaşlı eşi ya da çaresiz çocukları için hiçbir pişmanlık yahut acıma duygusu hissetmeden, hiçbir kişisel düşmanlıklarının olmadığı bir adamın canını almış bu adamların, müziğin tatlı ve dokunaklı nağmelerine kulak verince adeta gözleri yaşarıyordu.”
“La mediocridad no conoce nada más allá de ella, pero el talento instantáneamente reconoce a los genios.”
“Todo viene en círculo. [...] La vieja rueda se vuelve, y el mismo discurso se repite. Todo ya ha sido hecho antes, y lo será de nuevo.”
“Excuse me? Are you saying I’m not flirt-worthy? You know, I am almost already down to my pre-pregnancy weight, and my breasts are like twice the size they normally are. Any other heterosexual man on earth would totally hit on this right now.”
“Tink, you are the most flirt-worthy girl I know,” Pick spoke up … “Get yourself something to eat. Then come back and sit by me. I’d be happy to hit on you.”
“(The new model of rule, which revoked whatever legitimate claim women had to governance, was the assembly—composed only of men, since it derived its legitimacy from a hypothetical contract among equals. Women, defined as neither fully rational nor free, could not be a party to this contract.) They were a family—a family that had gone wrong, in which the influence of a woman had become predominant. Part of the scandal of their misdeeds was that a woman played so visible a role in them. It became another household drama of the old regime, featuring a powerful woman—that is, a woman exercising inappropriate power—who, having ventured out of the sphere appropriate to women (children, domestic duties, some talented dabbling in the arts), had become power-hungry, depraved, and through her sexual wiles had enslaved a weak male and corrupted a righteous one. *”
“You see,' Gwyn said slowly...'With an Indian boy maybe you can, you know, explore all that stuff. Go kamasutronic, so to speak.'
I nodded, but I was feeling battle fatigue and was now thinking the tip of another thought: Or maybe an Indian boy would get that most of us don't know that stuff. That it was a lot of hype. It was the bindi blondes who were all over this scene, not the holelessly nosed Indian girls.”
“I’ll probably just stay in Inverness until the orgies of hogmanay”
“Look at us. One bleeding body, one corpse, and a husk who's been half dead for years. No one who took an objective look at this room could think it was anything but too late, Ruth. For all of us.”
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