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Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
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Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, KStJ, DL was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. Originally a physician, in 1887 he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels about Holmes and Dr. Watson. In addition, Doyle wrote over fifty short stories featuring the famous detective. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.

Doyle was a prolific writer; his non-Sherlockian works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement", helped to popularise the mystery of the Mary Celeste.

✵ 22. May 1859 – 7. July 1930  •  Other names Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Arthur Conan Doyle: 166 quotes113 likes

Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi stimul ac nummos contemplar in arca.
(The public hiss at me, but I cheer myself when in my own house I contemplate the coins in my strong-box.)”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Source: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual

Source: The Musgrave Ritual

“The unexpected has happened so continually in my life that it has ceased to deserve the name.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Stark Munro Letters

Source: The Stark Munro Letters

“Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“I followed you.'

I saw no one.'

That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

Source: The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Dying Detective

Source: The Adventure of the Dying Detective

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

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Red Headed League

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Five Orange Pips

Source: The Five Orange Pips

“What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

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

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Sign of the Four

Source: The Sign of Four

“It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact.

~ Sherlock Holmes”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind."
"Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“I get in the dumps at times, and don't open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“Everything comes in circles. […] The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

“You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Source: The Boscombe Valley Mystery

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

“It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Red Headed League

“There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“Anything is better than stagnation.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

“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”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“Data! data! data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Source: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

“The future was with Fate. The present was our own.

~ The Poison Belt”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“I dislike my fellow-mortals. Justice compels me to add that they appear for the most part to dislike me.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Stories

“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 book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?"
"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine bottle.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Sign of the Four

Source: The Sign of Four

“Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

“The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“You know my methods. Apply them.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Sign of the Four

Source: The Sign of Four

“When once your point of view is changed, the very thing which was so damning becomes a clue to the truth.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Hound of the Baskervilles

Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles

“As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

“The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“It's a wicked world, and when a clever man turns his brain to crime it is the worst of all.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

Source: The Red Headed League

“To Sherlock Holmes she is alwayswoman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.”

Arthur Conan Doyle A Scandal in Bohemia

Source: A Scandal in Bohemia

“I am lost without my Boswell.”

Arthur Conan Doyle A Scandal in Bohemia

Source: A Scandal in Bohemia