It is a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it.
Holmes laughed. "Watson insists that I am the dramatist in real life," said he. "Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance. Surely our profession, Mr. Mac, would be a drab and sordid one if we di...
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different
Professor Moriaty: You see, hidden within the unconscious, there is an insatiable desire for conflict. So, you're not fighting me, so much as you are the human condition. All I want to do is own the bullets and the bandages.
Colonel Sebastian Moran: [watching something moving behind a cover] What are you playing at? [cover falls off to reveal a cannon aimed at him] Colonel Sebastian Moran: ...That's not fair.
Sir Thomas: He was conceived during one of our rituals.
There is a danger there - a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of t...
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 ...
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.
Mary Watson: I miss him too, in my own way. Dr. John Watson: He would have wanted us to go to Brighton. Mary Watson: He would have wanted to come with us.
The world of 'Sherlock Holmes' and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation.
It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of...
Lord Coward: How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the wise.
Dr. John Watson: [as he's choking Dredger into unconsciousness] Relax. I'm a doctor.
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.
One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens’s del...
I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid, but I remember being disappointed when he'd come up with these simple explanations for these complex mysteries.
I always had a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes and used to imagine helping him out.
I wind up stretched across the couch still nodding with Sherlock Holmes examining our crushed veins
When I encountered these haunting words from Franz Kafka, I realized exactly why this light sermon about the search for God had struck such a nerve: "Everyday life is the greatest detective story ever written. Every second, without noticing, we pass ...
