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"He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained observer to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his."
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"Because of self-doubt, the fear of failure, or laziness, most people usually bite off way less than they can chew."

"And is usually true of a man of one idea, [Charles] became obsessed."

"The only way to truly help most drug addicts and most alcoholics is to-instead of them-change reality."

"There is no such thing as a boring person when you are lonely or extremely bored."

"I am a mask, concealing the real."

"To evade insanity and depression, we unconsciously limit the number of people toward whom we are sincerely sympathetic."

"The inmates made jokes about the chair, the way people always make jokes about things that frighten them but can't be gotten away from."

"Happiness is something that you establish before a relationship. It is not the relationship that establishes it first."

"Comparison more than reality makes men happy or wretched."

"We all can give in to our inner critic. I don't know about you, but I would never allow anyone to speak to me the way I speak to myself! I wouldn't be their friend!"
Explore more quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle

"Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter."

"Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to use all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment."

"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."

"There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it."

"Some friend of yours, perhaps?""Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage visitors."

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

"The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter; The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the Heretics said from the platter. They argued it long and they argued it strong, And I hear they are arguing now; But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese, Not one of them thought of a cow."

"It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?"

"The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest."

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there."
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