Scottish author and creator of the oft-quoted detective-master Sherlock Holmes. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, and Guy de Maupassant, he became one of the most prolific writers whose other works include historical novels, romances, science fiction stories, plays and poetry, and non-fiction.
Doyle himself was not a good example of a rational personality: he believed in fairies and was interested in occultism. Sherlock Holmes stories have been translated into more than fifty languages and made into plays, films, radio and television series, musical comedies, ballet, cartoons, comic books, and advertisements. (1859-1930)
– Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes –
It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing more unaesthetic than a policeman.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The little things are infinitely the most important.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
As a rule, said Holmes, 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
The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
We can’t command our love, but we can our actions.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.
~ Arthur Conan Doyle
