Holmes Deduction Quotes

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It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)
Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.
Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk (Horowitz's Holmes, #1))
What a lovely thing a rose is!" He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Naval Treaty - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story)
There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4))
Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!
Terry Pratchett (Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3))
Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we're all deductive geniuses.
Rob Thomas (Mr. Kiss and Tell (Veronica Mars, #2))
The sensible man,' Crow had said (to Sherlock Holmes), 'don't look to confirm what he already knows -- he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain't useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right -- always try to prove yourself wrong instead.
Andrew Lane (Fire Storm (Young Sherlock Holmes, #4))
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of those outré and sensational accompaniments which have rendered it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
It was quite elementary,' returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.
Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk (Horowitz's Holmes, #1))
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
You look at me as if I were a conjuror,' Holmes remarked, with a laugh.
Anthony Horowitz (The House of Silk (Horowitz's Holmes, #1))
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2))
In one of the earlier Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle (not yet a Sir) made an observation on logical deduction. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. There is, however, a specific flaw in that maxim. It assumes people can recognize the difference between what is impossible and what they believe is impossible.
Peter Clines (Ex-Heroes (Ex-Heroes, #1))
I should have more faith. I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
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.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
The most common place crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or specific features from which deductions may be drawn
Arthur Conan Doyle
We could go to Baker Street,” Kit said, without even knowing he was going to say it. “We are in London.” Ty looked up at that, his gray eyes aglow. “To 221B Baker Street?
Cassandra Clare
I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies." "You are right," said Holmes demurely: "you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Oh my God,” I said as she startled. “Oh my God. You just wanted to come here to—” “There are excellent opportunities for observation and deduction here.” “—to dance.” I was trying very hard not to laugh. “Would you like to?” “Yes,” she said, and fairly dragged me out onto the floor.
Brittany Cavallaro (A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1))
True deduction can only be obtained through a certain amount of self annihilation.
Joe Riggs (The Real Sherlock Holmes: The mysterious methods and curious history of a true mental specialist)
But none of those deductions were methodical, Watson. That was all psychology. I loathe psychology.” “It’s okay,” I told her. “I hate losing at games, too.
Brittany Cavallaro (A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1))
John H. Watson might have been many things - a doctor, a storyteller, and by most accounts a kind and decent man-but he clearly wasn't a zoologist. There's no such thing as a swamp adder. And the idea that Sherlock Holmes deduced its existence from a saucer of milk is ridiculous- snakes have zero interest in milk. They also can't hear anything but vibrations, so they wouldn't hear a whistle. But they do breathe, so a snake couldn't survive in a locked safe.
Brittany Cavallaro (A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1))
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Illustrated Classics): A Sherlock Holmes Graphic Novel: A Study in Scarlet Illustrated and classic edition)
There it was: a full confession. Sherlock Holmes had done it again, and as I marveled at my devastating powers of deduction, I wished there had been two of me so I could have patted myself on the back. I know it sounds arrogant, but how often does one achieve a mental triumph of that magnitude? After listening to her speak just two words, I had nailed the whole bloody thing. If Watson had been there, he would have been shaking his head and muttering under his breath.
Paul Auster (The Brooklyn Follies)
I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
Yeah, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes," Riq said. "If you mean that I'm good at gathering clues for my brilliant deductions, then I take that as a compliment!
Jennifer A. Nielsen (Behind Enemy Lines (Infinity Ring, #6))
fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection)
Sherlock Holmes used the process of induction—not deduction.
Douglas Preston (Verses for the Dead (Pendergast, #18))
when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
It is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories. - The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge
Arthur Conan Doyle
When a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. (Sherlock)
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet. and The Country of the Saints.)
when this original intellectual deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent incidents, then the subjective becomes objective and
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
For the first time in a very many years, he felt the old vexation, the mingled impatience and pleasure at the world's beautiful refusal to yield up its mysteries without a fight.
Michael Chabon
In your own case, from all that you have told me, it seems obvious that your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for deduction are due to your own systematic training." -John. Watson-
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4))
There it was: a full confession. Sherlock Holmes had done it again, and as I marveled at my devastating powers of deduction, I wished there had been two of me so I could have patted myself in the back.
Paul Auster
Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis, with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes, and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered. 'Good morning, madam, said Holmes, cheerily. 'My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Speckled Band)
You have a case, Holmes?" I remarked. "The faculty of deduction is certainly contagious, Watson," he answered. "It has enabled you to probe my secret. Yes, I have a case. After a month of trivialities and stagnation the wheels move once more.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.” “Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unraveled the problems which were submitted to him.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade, winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.” “You are right,” said Holmes demurely; “you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Boscombe Valley Mystery - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story)
We have got to the deductions and the inferences,' said Lestrade, winking at me. 'I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.' 'You are right,' said Holmes demurely, 'you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
I'd left her in Sciences 442, after a long, trying day. The spectacularly bitchy text war she pitched with her brother wasn't even the worst of it. She didn't show me the original message she sent him, but I saw the ones he'd returned. No, you didn't find my spy, he insisted. He's obviously still at large. For instance, I can tell you right now that you're wearing all black, and that Jamie Watson is annoyed with you. I have eyes watching you right now. THAT IS NOT SPYING THAT IS SHODDY AMATEUR DEDUCTION AND IT IS INCORRECT, she replied furiously. She was, of course, wearing all black.
Brittany Cavallaro (A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1))
Holmes paused. "No lecture?" Leander - because it had to be Leander - laughed. "You've done worse things, and anyway, it's fairly clear you aren't actually having sex. This may be indelicate, but those sheets aren't hardly wrinkled enough. So I'm not quite sure what I should be lecturing you on." That was it. I was going to pass a law against people making deductions before lunch.
Brittany Cavallaro (The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes, #2))
From a drop of water," said the writer, "a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
To the man who loves art for its own sake,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily Telegraph, “it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped this truth that in these little records of our cases which you have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much to the many causes célèbres and sensational trials in which I have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made my special province.
Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection)
What a lovely thing a rose is!’ He walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. ‘There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,’ said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. ‘It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.
Arthur Conan Doyle (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes)
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. “You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.” “To forget it!” “You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” “But the Solar System!” I protested. “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down. I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran in this way— SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits. 1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil. 2. Philosophy.—Nil. 3. Astronomy.—Nil. 4. Politics.—Feeble. 5. Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening. 6. 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. Chemistry.—Profound. 8. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. 9. 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.
Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1))
A man,” he gathered his ideas, “A man should strive to do something larger than himself. To cure disease, or eradicate hunger or poverty or crime.” “Ah!” I said. “Noble thoughts.” I fancied that I could hear the lovely voice of Miss Lucy earnestly saying that, or something similar, to Holmes within the week. When a man is suddenly struck by noble ambitions it is usually a woman who does the striking. But I thought it would be wiser not to mention this deduction,
Michael Kurland (The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters)
I could feel Holmes studying me again, and then he asked, “Did something of which I am as yet unaware occur at the Lansdowne House ball?” I might have known Holmes would make that deduction. “I think inhaling cyanide gas might be the part of the evening I remember most fondly.” “Descriptive, certainly,” Holmes murmured, “but ultimately uninformative.
Anna Elliott (Death at the Diogenes Club (Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery #5))
You see I have deduced why Sherlock has a deerstalker cap, why Arthur Conan Doyle chose it. If you some the Jack the Ripper reports the suspect is wearing a dirty deerstalker cap. I believe it is likely because the case was unsolvable he left it on Sherlock Holmes mind forever. I hate to hear him whine so I suppose I shall to return take the stupid hat off his head, that funny author put on him over a century ago.
C.A.A. Savastano
I am not responsible for your wanton level of self-imposed intelligence. —Kari, the Valkyrie. Garden of the Dragons +
Douglas M. Laurent
Not only am I a genius at deductive reasoning, but I’m a mother –that’s like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson rolled into one giant fucking ovary.
Marley Jacobs (Goodnight, Nic)
I am a practitioner of the science of deduction, of using the known facts in a case to unveil the unknown.’ - Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Murders
Mark Sohn (Sherlock Holmes and The Whitechapel Murders: An account of the matter by John Watson M.D.)
Keep your blood-sucking fiends with melanin issues; my fictional love was and always would be Holmes. Reason, intelligence, deduction.
Deborah Wilde (Blood & Ash (The Jezebel Files, #1))
In one of the earlier Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle (not yet a Sir) made an observation on logical deduction. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. There is, however, a specific flaw in that maxim. It assumes people can recognize the difference between what is impossible and what they believe is impossible.
Peter Clines (Ex-Heroes (Ex-Heroes, #1))
Review your facts, my father said, before you build deductions on top of them.
Brittany Cavallaro (The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes, #2))
Holmes displayed classic signs of depression and resorted to such unsavoury outlets for his energies as cocaine abuse.
Daniel Smith (How to Think Like Sherlock: Improve Your Powers of Observation, Memory and Deduction)
But rather than restricting his reading, it is far more likely that Holmes was an accomplished exponent of speed reading, able to digest large amounts of text at a high tempo and extract the information he required.
Daniel Smith (How to Think Like Sherlock: Improve Your Powers of Observation, Memory and Deduction)
System Holmes in, check the tendency to gather detail thoughtlessly, and instead focus—thoughtfully—on the details we already have. All of those observations? We need to learn to divide them in our minds in order to maximize productive reasoning. We have to learn when not to think of them as well as when to bring them in. We have to learn to concentrate—reflect, inhibit, edit— otherwise we may end up getting exactly nowhere on any of the myriad ideas floating through our heads. Mindfulness and motivation are essential to successful deduction.
Anonymous
The separation of crucial and incidental, the backbone of any deduction, can be hard for even the best-trained minds. That’s why Holmes doesn’t run off based on his initial theories. He first does precisely what he urges us to do: lay the facts out in a neat row and proceed from there. Even in his mistakes, he is deliberative and Holmeslike, not letting System Watson act though it may well want to
Anonymous
At that moment, Ingrid remembered ‘The Five Orange Pips’ and maybe the most important thing Holmes told Watson: the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the ones, both before and after.
Peter Abrahams (Down the Rabbit Hole (Echo Falls, #1))
Sherlock Holmes would’ve been proud of my investigative method—only my method works backwards. He used the skill of deductive reasoning, putting the clues he observed together to develop a conclusion. I, however, find evidence to support my conclusion once I know what the answer is.
Dima Zales (The Thought Readers (Mind Dimensions, #1))