"I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?"
~Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)
"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.
~Sherlock Holmes (A Study in Scarlet)
"There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before."
~ Sherlock Holmes ( A Study in Scarlet)
" I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)
"What one man can invent another can discover."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Adventure of the Dancing Man)
"What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Cardboard Box)
"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."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Man with the Twisted Lip)
"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."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)
"Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person."
~ Sherlock Holmes (Silver Blaze
"I confess that I have been blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all."
~ Sherlock Holmes ( The Man with the Twisted Lip)
"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."
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Five Orange Pips)
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
~ Sherlock Holmes (The Sign of Four)