Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes - Page 15

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And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Mean, Sarcasm

Arthur Conan Doyle (2016). “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”, p.174, My Ebook Publishing House

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Might I trouble you to open the window, for chloroform vapour does not help the palate.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Sarcasm, Doe

Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “Sherlock Holmes. Selected Stories”, p.313, OUP Oxford

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It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Country, Stars, Children

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892). “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, p.250

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You have been in Afghanistan I perceive.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Afghanistan, Perceive, Has Beens

A Study in Scarlet ch. 1 (1888)

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One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell. Picture to yourself the unilateral development - the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Athlete, Sarcasm

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2015). “Sherlock Holmes: The Novels: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.303, Penguin

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One forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human nature is weak. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Time, Nature, Waiting

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We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Drinking, Mean

Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.425, GENERAL PRESS

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"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur."

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Mean, Sarcasm

Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.195, Race Point Publishing

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Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Heart, Men, Clouds

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, Choi Hyun (2016). “The Valley of Fear”, p.104, ebookspub

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An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement . . .

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Sarcasm, Advancement

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)”, p.6180, Delphi Classics

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Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size - far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. From it there depended two long drooping, green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Summer, Ocean, Dark

Arthur Conan Doyle (2000). “Tales of Unease”, p.95, Wordsworth Editions

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Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Humorous, Sarcasm, Science

The Sign of the Four ch. 1 (1890)

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It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this." I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself. "Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea." "The board-schools." "Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Running, Spring, School

Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.340, GENERAL PRESS

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If I had never touched Holmes, who has tended to obscure my higher work, my position in literature would at the present moment be a more commanding one.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Literature, Moments, Obscure

Arthur Conan Doyle (2012). “The Sherlock Holmes Archives (incl. The Truth About Sherlock Holmes)”, p.9, Jazzybee Verlag

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It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Skulls, Intention, Moriarty

Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.500, Race Point Pub

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A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon? There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Running, Art, Use

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, Choi Hyun (2016). “A Study in Scarlet”, p.32, ebookspub

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Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?

Arthur Conan Doyle

Ocean, Thinking, Oysters

Arthur Conan Doyle (1989). “Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories”, p.832, Wordsworth Editions

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The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Book, Office, Prosperity

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2010). “The Firm of Girdlestone”, p.7, The Floating Press

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As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Animal, Links, Able

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, David Stuart Davies (1998). “The Best of Sherlock Holmes”, p.53, Wordsworth Editions

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If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Alive, Rooms, Watson

Arthur Conan Doyle, General Press (2016). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels”, p.786, GENERAL PRESS

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The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without delay. Its finder has carried it off therefore to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Morning, Food, Destiny

Arthur Conan Doyle (2015). “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, p.110, Zillmann Publishing

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The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Selfish, Wife, Association

Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “The Complete Sherlock Holmes”, p.1043, Race Point Pub

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To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year, Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed, The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Beautiful, Eye, Years

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection With illustrated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 4 Novels, 56 Short Stories and 120+ illustrations”, p.790, Ageless Reads

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Far away on the path we saw Sir Henry looking back, his face white in the moonlight, his hands raised in horror, glaring helplessly at the frightful thing which was hunting him down. But that cry of pain from the hound had blown all our fears to the winds. If he was vulnerable he was mortal, and if we could wound him we could kill him. Never have I seen a man run as Holmes ran that night.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Running, Pain, Book

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection With illustrated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - 4 Novels, 56 Short Stories and 120+ illustrations”, p.865, Ageless Reads

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In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant. We had never before seen them save at night, and indeed they are nocturnal animals save when disturbed in their lairs, as these had been. We now stood amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Spring, Animal, Night

Arthur Conan Doyle (2015). “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Dover Reader”, p.436, Courier Dover Publications

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Born: May 22, 1859
Died: July 7, 1930
Occupation: Physician
Cite this Page: Citation

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