Top 70 Sherlock Quotes Ever
“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”
“There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before”
“Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a brace of grouse, with something a little choice in white wines. Watson, you have never yet recognized my merits as a housekeeper. ~ Sherlock Holmes”
“In my inmost heart I believed that I could succeed where others failed, and now I had the opportunity to test myself”
“Excellent!”” I cried. “”Elementary,”” said he”
“To begin at the beginning.”
“When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has the nerve and he has the knowledge”
“The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”
“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. Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?”
“My business is that of every other good citizen – to uphold the law”
“I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research”
“The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated”
“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so”
“I wanted to end the world, but I’ll settle for ending yours”
“Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances”
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”
“It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through — a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage”
“I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection”
“Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician”
“I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather”
“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it”
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?”
“My mind rebels at stagnation, give me problems, give me work!”
“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else”
“I think that there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge”
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
“There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen”
I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation”
I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix”
“A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman’s love, however badly he may have treated her.”
“To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces. The sea air, sunshine, and patience, Watson—all else will come”
“It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?”
To a great mind, nothing is little”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don’t know.”
“A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.”
“I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done”
“It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers”
“A strange enigma is man”
“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.”
“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,’ he remarked with a smile. ‘It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”
“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”
“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’-the-wisps of the imagination”
“Her cuisine is limited but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman”
“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,”” he remarked with a smile. “”It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”
“One should always look for a possible alternative, and provide against it”
“Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the exactness of their learning”
“To a great mind, nothing is little,’ remarked Holmes, sententiously”
“What is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance”
“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last”
“Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over them, trying to separate those which were crucial from others which were merely incidental”
“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”
“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles”
“It is all very well to say that a man is clever, but the reader wants to see examples of it.”
“I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule”
“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?”
“I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need”
“My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill”
“What one man can invent another can discover”
“You see, but you do not observe”
“She was as good as she was beautiful and as intelligent as she was good”
I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go”
‘I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee”
“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”
“I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart”
“That head of yours should be for use as well as
ornament”
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside”