“I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.”

“I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts.”

“So unworldly was he--or so capricious--that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.”

“I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart.”

“My dear fellow, you may laugh, but I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more.

“I had the Irish faculty of seeing some gleam of humor in every darkness.”

“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”

“better to be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother”

“It is decreed by a merciful Nature that the human brain cannot think of two things simultaneously, so that if it be steeped in curiosity as to science it has no room for merely personal considerations.”

“Several times during the last three years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret.”

“When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it.”

“The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men.”

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

“What is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.”

“Very sorry to knock you up, Watson,' said he [Holmes], 'but it is a common lot this morning. Mrs Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you.”

“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety.”

“It was a net from which it seemed to me, a few hours ago, that there was no possible escape. But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. He wished to improve that which was already perfect . . . and so he ruined all.”

“If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-wisps of the imagination.”

“Give me your details, and from an armchair I will return you an excellent expert opinion.”

“I am sure that it is the truth.”

“His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character.”

“Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual.”

“I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.”

“Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?”

“Eliminate the impossible, and what ever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - Sherlock Holmes”

“A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.”

“I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business.”

“The strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes.”

“Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation.”

“There was no use denying anything to a woman, for she would have her way.”

“Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon.”

“Why on earth people who have something to say which is worth hearing should not take the slight trouble to learn how to make it heard is one of the strange mysteries of modern life.”

“I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence.”

“The statesman received us with that old-fashioned courtesy for which he is remarkable, and seated us on the two luxuriant lounges on either side of the fireplace. Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.”

“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.”

“It is not what we know, but what we can prove.”

“My job is to know what other people do not know.”

“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst.”

“That head of yours should be for use as well as

“There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt recognition.”