Conan Detective Quotes

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

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

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

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

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.

Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.

There's only one truth

Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. - The Adventure of the Dying Detective

Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses: "1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil. 2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil. 3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil. 4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble. 5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them. 7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound. 8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic. 9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century. 10. Plays the violin well. 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman. 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

You know my methods. Apply them.

A detective who uses his deductive powers to corner a suspect and then does nothing to stop them from committing suicide is no better than a murderer himself. - Kudo Shinichi

Don't judge from the outside. Like any beautiful rose has thorns... the more a person appears nice on the outside, the more you should doubt the inside.

Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.

Flowers are fragile and ephemeral...Even if you meant to protect them with a surrounding fence from wind and rain, they would die without sunlight...and a spindly fence has no power against a strong wind. - Haibara Ai

The best way of successfully acting a part is to be it.

to keep believing in life, until you're sure of death, it's the way a detective should be." - Kogoro Mouri, Detective Conan

If you force me to pick one color, it'd be Black... It covers up the things inside of me that I don't want to be known. Well, for the same reason, black is the color I hate, too...

It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.

You must never forget it if that's an important memory to you. Especially when a person dies, he can only live in the memories of others.

Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?" [Sherlock Holmes on his raison d'être.]

To let the brain work without sufficient material is like racing an engine. It racks itself to pieces.

When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes.

A secret makes a woman, woman.

It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.

Detectives are only human; we're not Gods that know everything. When detectives tell their theory, in reality, most are rather anxious. Thinking that there's always possibility that they could have missed something, somewhere... But in return, the excitement you experience when your theory's smack bang correct is twice as great!

Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we're all deductive geniuses.

You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.” My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?

I fear that if the matter is beyond humanity, it is certainly beyond me.

The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.

I should prefer that you do not mention my name at all in connection with this case, as I choose to be only associated with those crimes which present some difficulty in their solution.

Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.

You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?" "Yes, he did." "When did he say this?" "When he left me." "Did he say anything more?" "He mentioned his name." Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. "Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?" “His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

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.

I shall never do that,' I answered; 'you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.

Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?

Depending on someone without giving your best isn't good at all!

A strange enigma is man

All my instincts are one way, and all the facts are the other, and I much fear that British juries have not yet attained that pitch of intelligence when they will give the preference to my theories over Lestrade's facts.

The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man.

I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that, and further inquiries out of the question.

It was amusing to me to see how the detective's overbearing manner had changed suddenly to that of a child asking questions of its teacher.

Matsuda-kun: Wow... Your father died on duty and you see his memento as an amulet... Satou-san: Hey, give it back! You want to tell me to forget it so I can move on, right? Matsuda-kun: No... You don't need to forget everything... Satou-san: Eh? Matsuda-kun: Wherher you can move on or not is totally up to you. If you forget your father her could... really die, right?

He has considerable gifts himself. 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.

I said that he was my superior in observation and deduction. If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an armchair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived. But he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right.

There were no footmarks.' 'Meaning that you saw none?' 'I assure you, sir, that there were none.' 'My good Hopkins, I have investigated many crimes, but I have never yet seen one which was committed by a flying creature. As long as the criminal remains upon two legs so long must there be some indentation, some abrasion, some trifling displacement which can be detected by the scientific searcher.

I don't take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not business.

It is not easy to express the inexpressible," he answered with a laugh.

I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as our lawless lion-hunter has done.

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.

I'm not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all." "I shall never do that," I answered; "you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world." My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was a sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story ... Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it.'' —Sherlock Holmes on John Watson's "pamphlet", "A Study in Scarlet".

The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement. You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

Don't forget, Watson. You won't fail me. You never did fail me. No doubt there are natural enemies which limit the increase of the creatures. You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters? No, no; horrible! You'll convey all that is in your mind.

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.

A secret makes a woman, woman

Tut! Tut!' cried Sherlock Holmes. 'You must act, man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.

I should like to meet him," I said. "If I am to lodge with anyone, I should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How could I meet this friend of yours?

Conventional wisdom holds that Arthur Conan Doyle invented the detective story but in fact Green’s first book featuring detective Ebenezer Gryce – in which Miss Butterworth does not appear – The Leavenworth Case came out in 1878, almost a decade before Sherlock Holmes made his debut in A Study in Scarlet. This is why Green is often referred to as The Mother of the Detective Novel.

The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.

Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

Kekaguman lebih baik hanya tetap sebagai kekaguman. Kalau terlalu dekat.. Bisa seperti ikarus yang jatuh ke bumi karena sayapnya terbakar matahari..

I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.

I mean really: If even Conan Doyle hungered to shove Holmes off a tall cliff, surely a young female of obvious intelligence would have brained the detective on first sight.

fear of death is worse than death itself...

Even If someone’s after you stay hidden and make sure they can’t find you and ur information

Now, Watson," said he. "Have you any change in your pocket?" "Yes." "Any silver?" "A good deal." "How many half-crowns?" "I have five." "Ah, too few! Too few! How very unfortunate, Watson! However, such as they are you can put them in your watchpocket. And all the rest of your money in your left trouser pocket. Thank you. It will balance you so much better like that.

There was the whole collection of Arthur Conan Doyle, Maurice Leblanc’s Lupin series, and every translated work that the publishers Hakubunkan and Heibonsha had ever released. Then there was the Japanese section: it began with nineteenth-century novels by Ruiko Kuroiwa, and also featured Edogawa Ranpo, Fuboku Kozakai, Saburo Koga, Udaru Oshita, Takataro Kigi, Juza Unno, Mushitaro Oguri all crammed in together. And then as well as Japanese translations of Western novels, there were the original, untranslated works of Ellery Queen, Dickson Carr, Freeman Wills Crofts and Agatha Christie, etc. etc. etc. It was a magnificent sight: an entire library of detective novels.

I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I have ever come across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. -Sherlock Holmes

Pray interrupt me if there is any inference which is not perfectly clear to you. It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated." -Sherlock Holmes- -The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes-

There is no deduction that is superior or inferior…because there is only one truth.

I always smoke ‘ship's’ myself,” I answered. “That's

All knowledge comes useful to the detective,” remarked Holmes.

Someone in a novel, was he not? I don’t take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them.

Strange how the brain controls the brain! -The Adventure of the Dying Detective

If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your Majesty.

Of all ruins, that of a noble mind is the most deplorable. -The Adventure of the Dying Detective

Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter.

gaunt,

It's the Baker Street division of the detective police force... There's more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out of a dozen of the force,' Holmes remarked. 'The mere sight of an official-looking person seals men's lips. These youngsters, however, go everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all they want is organization.

At bottom, Conan Doyle for the Defense is a story about class identification: those snap judgments, themselves dark diagnostic instruments, that in every age are wielded to separate 'us' from 'them.

I can see nothing,” said I, handing it back to my friend. “On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences.

You have attempted to tinge detection with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." - Holmes to Watson, The Sign of Four

From the vantage of the early twenty-first century, it might be more accurate to say, with no disrespect, that Arthur Conan Doyle originated Sherlock Holmes. The rest of us, obviously, aren’t yet finished creating him.

In the. Middle Ages and afterwards, Jews, like members of other marginalized groups, were denied the legal protections that England afforded the archetypal citizen: the free white native-born law-abiding Christian adult male.

You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the police agent loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him.

Sure there are times when one cries with acidity, 'Where are the limits of human stupidity?' Here is a critic who says as a platitude That I am guilty because 'in gratitude Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior, Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior".' Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator, That the created is not the creator? As the creator I've praised to satiety Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety, And have admitted that in my detective work I owe to my model a deal of selective work. But is it not on the verge of inanity To put down to me my creation's crude vanity? He, the created, would scoff and would sneer, Where I, the creator, would bow and revere. So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle: The doll and its maker are never identical.

By the late nineteenth century, as British cities teemed with new inhabitants, crime rates rose and more established residents came to be afflicted with a new, urban, and distinctly modern anxiety. For the middle and upper classes, it centered acutely on the protection of property, coalescing in particular around city dwellers who were not members of the bourgeoisie. These included the working class, the poor, new immigrants, and Jews, all of whom were viewed increasingly as agents of social contagion - a threat in urgent need of containment.

Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.

When Arthur Conan Doyle created the iconic Sherlock Holmes in 1887, he had no idea that his readers would come to think that the investigating detective really existed. But that is what happened: thousands of readers wrote to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street, asking him to solve an astonishing array of cases. Doyle also received letters full of riddles and unsolved crimes, as everybody believed that someone capable of solving the most difficult fictional crimes would also have the intelligence to solve them in real life. And they were not far from the truth, because Doyle did solve many real cases in the course of his life.

The fictitious world, to which Sherlock Holmes belonged, expected of him what the real world of the day expected of its scientists: more light and more justice. As the creation of a doctor who had been soaked in the rationalist thought of the period, the Holmesian cycle offers us for the first time the spectacle of a hero triumphing again and again by means of logic and scientific method. And the hero’s prowess is as marvellous as the power of science, which many people hoped would lead to a material and spiritual improvement of the human condition, and Conan Doyle first among them. —PIERRE NORDON, Conan Doyle: A Biography, 1966

The fine and varied literature that I read was almost all in translation: from classic works by Jack London, Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, to detective stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon, not to mention fascinating pornographic books. I also appreciated the biblical stories that contained all three genres.

Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I don’t take much stock of detectives in novels - chaps that do things and never let you see how they do them. That’s just inspiration: not business.’ ‘Johnathan Wild wasn’t a detective, and he wasn’t in a novel. He was a master criminal, and he lived last century - 1750 or thereabouts.

Our official detectives may blunder in the matter of intelligence, but never in that of courage. Gregson climbed the stair to arrest this desperate murderer with the same absolutely quiet and businesslike bearing with which he would have ascended the official staircase of Scotland Yard. The Pinkerton man had tried to push past him, but Gregson had firmly elbowed him back. London dangers were the privilege of the London force.

It is of the first importance,’ he said, ‘not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.

Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?” Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,” he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.

OLIVER DAVENANT did not merely read books. He snuffed them up, took breaths of them into his lungs, filled his eyes with the sight of the print and his head with the sound of words. Some emanation from the book itself poured into his bones, as if he were absorbing steady sunshine. The pages had personality. He was of the kind who cannot have a horrifying book in the room at night. He would, in fine weather, lay it upon an outside sill and close the window. Often Julia would see a book lying on his doormat. As well as this, his reading led him in and out of love. At first, it was the picture of Alice going up on tiptoe to shake hands with Humpty Dumpty; then the little Fatima in his Arthur Rackham book, her sweet dusky face, the coins hanging on her brow, the billowing trousers and embroidered coat. Her childish face was alive with excitement as she put the key to the lock. “Don’t!” he had once cried to her in loud agony. In London, he would go every Saturday morning to the Public Library to look at a picture of Lorna Doone. Some Saturdays it was not there, and he would go home again, wondering who had borrowed her, in what kind of house she found herself that week-end. On his last Saturday, he went to say good-bye and the book was not there, so he sat down at a table to await its return. Just before the library was to be shut for lunch-time, he went to the shelf and kissed the two books which would lie on either side of his Lorna when she was returned and, having left this message of farewell, made his way home, late for lunch and empty of heart. If this passion is to be called reading, then the matrons with their circulating libraries and the clergymen with their detective tales are merely flirting and passing time. To discover how Oliver’s life was lived, it was necessary, as in reading The Waste Land, to have an extensive knowledge of literature. With impartiality, he studied comic papers and encyclopaedia, Eleanor’s pamphlets on whatever interested her at the moment, the labels on breakfast cereals and cod liver oil, Conan Doyle and Charlotte Brontë.

Come along, Doctor,” he said: “we shall go and look him up. I’ll tell you one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning to the two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore-leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may assist you.” Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile. “If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the former. “Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One other thing, Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “ ‘Rache,’ is the German for ‘revenge’; so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.” With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open mouthed behind him.

Burns, a former Secret Service agent, had succeeded Pinkerton as the world’s most celebrated private eye. A short, stout man, with a luxuriant mustache and a shock of red hair, Burns had once aspired to be an actor, and he cultivated a mystique, in part by writing pulp detective stories about his cases. In one such book, he declared, “My name is William J. Burns, and my address is New York, London, Paris, Montreal, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and wherever else a law-abiding citizen may find need of men who know how to go quietly about throwing out of ambush a hidden assassin or drawing from cover criminals who prey upon those who walk straight.” Though dubbed a “front-page detective” for his incessant self-promotion, he had an impressive track record, including catching those responsible for the 1910 bombing of the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times, which killed twenty people. The New York Times called Burns “perhaps the only really great detective, the only detective of genius, whom this country has produced,” and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave him the moniker he longed for: “America’s Sherlock Holmes.