Quotes · verified word for word in the text
The Sign of the Four quotes
19 quotes from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. Source: Project Gutenberg e-text #2097 (public domain in the USA), the text this site’s reader shows. Each quote is copied exactly from that text and links to its passage in the reader; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against the reader’s text.
No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit,—destructive to the logical faculty.
— Spoken by a character · I. The Science of Deduction
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
— Spoken by a character · VI. Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.
— Spoken by a character · XII. The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world?
— Spoken by a character · I. The Science of Deduction
Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.
— Spoken by a character · I. The Science of Deduction
“You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results.”
— Spoken by a character · VI. Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time.
— Sherlock Holmes · I. The Science of Deduction
“Women are never to be entirely trusted,—not the best of them.”
— Holmes · IX. A Break in the Chain
Because you are within my reach again,” I said, taking her hand. She did not withdraw it. “Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman.
— Spoken by a character · XI. The Great Agra Treasure
One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest. So it is.
— Spoken by a character · X. The End of the Islander
It is that the chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.
— Spoken by a character · VII. The Episode of the Barrel
He remarks that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.
— Holmes · X. The End of the Islander
“There is something positively inhuman in you at times.”
— Spoken by a character · II. The Statement of the Case
A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other.
But let us have no outsiders,—no police or officials. We can settle everything satisfactorily among ourselves, without any interference.
— Spoken by a character · IV. The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
No; I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.
— Spoken by a character · VIII. The Baker Street Irregulars
I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.
— Spoken by a character · II. The Statement of the Case
If my own servant could not believe my innocence, how could I hope to make it good before twelve foolish tradesmen in a jury-box?
But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.
— Spoken by a character · I. The Science of Deduction