30 Sherlock Holmes Quotes: Clever Insights from the Great Detective

1. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”

2. “You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.”

3. "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."

4. “Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”

5. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

6. "She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men."

7. "The more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be."

8. "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."

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

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

11. “I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.”

12. “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.”

13. “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”

14. "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."

15. "The strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger, but with the smaller crimes. And occasionally, indeed, are those where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed."

16. "I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the logical faculty."

17. “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

18. “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.”

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

20. “I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.”

21. "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."

22. "Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

23. "It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you."

1. "The ideal reasoner would, when he has 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."

2. "Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay."

3. "It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

4. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

5. "There is nothing like first-hand evidence."

6. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

7. "You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles."