Great Throughts Treasury

"It's a bonny thing, said he. Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits."

"It was on a bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of '97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss."

"Just as an octopus may have his den in some ocean cave, and come floating out a silent image of horror to attack a swimmer, so I picture such a spirit lurking in the dark of the house which he curses by his presence, and ready to float out upon all whom he can injure."

"Let me see. What are my other shortcomings?"

"Let me say right here, Mr. Holmes, that money is nothing to me in this case. You can burn it if it’s any use in lighting you to the truth. This woman is innocent and this woman has to be cleared, and it’s up to you to do it. Name your figure! My professional charges are upon a fixed scale, I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether."

"It's only been an important thing for the past three days, is that nothing has happened."

"Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil"

"Like all other arts, the science of deduction and analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for."

"Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters."

"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-colored 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."

"Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed."

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outer results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."

"Living, as I do, in an educated and scientific atmosphere, I could not have conceived that the first principles of zoology were so little known. Is it possible that you do not know the elementary fact in comparative anatomy, that the wing of a bird is really the forearm, while the wing of a bat consists of three elongated fingers with membranes between?"

"Look at Sir Charles's death! That was bad enough, for all that the coroner said. Look at the noises on the moor at night. There's not a man would cross it after sundown if he was paid for it. Look at this stranger hiding out yonder, and watching and waiting! What's he waiting for? What does it mean? It means no good to anyone of the name of Baskerville."

"Make the matter even more terrible than the truth"

"Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. - Sherlock Holmes"

"Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools."

"Like many men who override the opinions of others, Challenger was exceedingly sensitive when anyone took a liberty with his own"

"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained."

"Listen to me while I lay a curse upon you and yours! she cries, as she raised her shriveled arms and blighted him with her flashing eyes: As you have done to the house of Loring, so may God do to you, until your power is swept from the land of England, and of your great Abbey of Waverley there is nothing left but a pile of grey stones in a green meadow! I see it! With my old eyes I see it! From scullion to abbot and from cellar to tower, may Waverley and all within it droop and wither from this night on!"

"Meanwhile, in the broad and lofty chamber set apart for occasions of import, the Abbot himself was pacing impatiently backwards and forwards, with his long white nervous hands clasped in front of him. His thin, thought-worn features and sunken, haggard cheeks bespoke one who had indeed beaten down that inner foe whom every man must face, but had none the less suffered sorely in the contest. In crushing his passions he had well-nigh crushed himself."

"Million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian."

"Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us."

"My correspondence has certainly the charm of variety, and the humbler are usually the more interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie."

"Mr. Melas, however, still lived, and in less than an hour, with the aid of ammonia and brandy I had the satisfaction of seeing him open his eyes, and of knowing that my hand had drawn him back from that dark valley in which all paths meet."

"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."

"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime."

"My business is that of every other good citizen - to uphold the law."

"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining lights as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid? I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children."

"My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser."

"My dear Watson, said [Sherlock Holmes], I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers."

"My first impression as I opened the door was that a fire had broken out, for the room was so filled with smoke that the light of the lamp upon the table was blurred by it. As I entered, however, my fears were set at rest, for it was the acrid fumes of strong coarse tobacco which took me by the throat and set me coughing. Through the haze I had a vague vision of Holmes in his dressing-gown coiled up in an armchair with his black clay pipe between his lips."

"My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet."

"My friend's wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair. You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake say that you're not hurt! It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay? beyond that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain."

"My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand."

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."

"My mind is amenable to any inaction. Give me problems, give me work ... and I'm in my élément.Je can then do without artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I have a craving for excitement mentale. C is why I practice this profession so special, or rather that I created because I am the only the world"

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know."

"My profession is its own reward"

"My wife was on a visit to her aunt's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street. 'Why,' said I, glancing up at my companion, 'that was surely the bell? Who could come tonight? Some friend of yours, perhaps?' 'Except yourself I have none,' he answered. 'I do not encourage visitors."

"Nature is the true revelation of the Deity to man. The nearest green field is the inspired page from which you may read all that it is needful for you to know."

"Nay, said she, the saints in Heaven cannot help me now until they take me to my rest. There is no place for me in the world beyond, and all my friends were slain on the day I was taken. Leave me, brave men, and let me care for myself. Already it lightens in the east, and black will be your fate if you are taken. Go, and may the blessing of one who was once a holy nun go with you and guard you from danger."

"My mind, he said, 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. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world."

"Nigel looked at her with sparkling eyes. The soul which shone through her dark face had transformed it for the moment into a beauty, more lofty and more rare than that of her shallow sister. He bowed before the majesty of the woman, and pressed his lips to her hand."

"Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man, it is perhaps better to take the knee of the trouser. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward."

"No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so."

"No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,--destructive to the logical faculty."

"No mention of that local hunt, Watson, said Holmes with a mischievous smile, but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed."

"No violence, gentlemen - no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!"

"No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely. ~ Sherlock Holmes"