Arthur Conan Doyle

I am not a connoisseur of crime; I am a student of it.

Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.

Never trust to general impressions, my dear Watson, but concentrate yourself upon details.

One of the most dangerous things for a man's mind is to be without an object.

The compound of the two, the artistic and the practical, is the most powerful weapon in the world.

It is a truism that the surest way to conceal a fact is to make it appear ridiculous.

Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.

The ideal reasoner would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which had preceded it but also all the ramifications which would follow.

You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

The greatest tragedies are those that are never told.

The very atmosphere of the room seemed to be impregnated with the spirit of crime.

One must not be too systematic in this world.

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.

A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

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.

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.