Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Cunning and Cleverness Quotes
"It is simplicity itself," said [Holmes]; "my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously th...
Justice and Judgment Quotes
"The law cannot, as you say, touch you [Mr. Windibank]," said Holmes, unlocking and throwing open the door, "yet there never was a man who deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother...
Foreignness and 'The Other' Quotes
The largest landed proprietor in [Boscombe Valley] is a Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned some years ago to the old country. One of the farms which he held, that of Hath...
Admiration Quotes
"Then, how do you know?" "I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?" "My dear Holmes," sai...
Drugs and Alcohol Quotes
My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Hol...
Women and Femininity Quotes
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,...
Society and Class Quotes
"What a woman – oh, what a woman!" cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. "Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable...
Literature and Writing Quotes
"I think that I had better go, Holmes." "Not a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell" (Scandal.1.36-7).
Weakness Quotes
[After doing a bit of amateur begging] I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until, some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ served upon me for twenty-five p...
Appearances Quotes
It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to...
Respect and Reputation Quotes
"If I am Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained." "No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said Holmes. "...
Contrasting Regions: London and the Countryside Quotes
"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along the line. "I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of Lond...
Technology and Modernization Quotes
"I have spent the whole day," said [Holmes], "over Lloyd's registers and files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February of...