Sherlock Holmes Quotes (5 quotes)
[Colonel Ross:] “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
[Sherlock Holmes:] “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident.”
[Sherlock Holmes:] “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident.”
[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.
Any true Sherlock Holmes of science, possest of an adequate knowledge of first principles, may unravel a very tangled web of mystery. The great naturalist requires but a few pieces of bone from any prehistoric monster in order to ascertain whether it was herbivorous or carnivorous, reptile or mammal, or even to construct a counterpart of its entire skeleton.
His [Sherlock Holmes] ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. … he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. … “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.”
If this “critical openminded attitude” … is wanted, the question at once arises, Is it science that should be studied in order to achieve it? Why not study law? A judge has to do everything that a scientist is exhorted to do in the way of withholding judgment until all the facts are in, and then judging impartially on the merits of the case as well as he can. … Why not a course in Sherlock Holmes? The detectives, or at least the detective-story writers, join with the scientists in excoriating “dogmatic prejudice, lying, falsification of facts, and data, and willful fallacious reasoning.”