It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson, said he. A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment.

I think Mr. Holmes had not quite got over his illness yet. He's been behaving very queerly, and he is very much excited." "I don't think you need alarm yourself," said I. "I have usually found that there was method in his madness." "Some folks might say there was madness in his method," muttered the Inspector.

Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the statement of the unhappy schoolmaster. His drawn brows and the deep furrow between them showed that he needed no exhortation to concentrate all his attention upon a problem which, apart from the tremendous interests involved must appeal so directly to his love of the complex and the unusual. He now drew out his notebook and jotted down one or two memoranda.

It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.

After all, important fresh evidence is a two-edged thing, and may possibly cut in a very different direction to that which Lestrade imagines. Take your breakfast, Watson, and we will go out together and see what we can do. I feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support today.

I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case." "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he answered, laughing.

What is the meaning of it, Watson? said Holmes solemnly as he laid down the paper. 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. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can read analytically.

The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.

But one must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow.

There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe what is true." Another translation says:"There are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn't so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so.