French films

Arthur Conan Doyle - biography

Biography

Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes
“To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.”

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”

“A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.”

“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.”

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside. ”

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

“When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals.  He has nerve and he has knowledge.”

“Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. ”

“The chief proof of man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. ”

“I never guess.  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. ”

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

“His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.”

“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.”

“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.”

“For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.”

“We can’t command our love, but we can our actions.”

“Our ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.”

“I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.”

“’Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’ ‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’ ‘The dog did nothing in the night-time.’ ‘That was the curious incident.’”

“As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be.  It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.”

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. ”

“It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself.  If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one’s audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though perhaps a meretricious, effect. ”

“The case has, in some respects, been not entirely devoid of interest. ”

“The stage lost a fine actor, just as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime. ”

“This is quite a three-pipe problem. ”

“You see, but you do not observe”

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ”

“Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.”

“An experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents.”

“Women are naturally secretive, and they like to do their own secreting.”

“A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem.”

“A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.”

“As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.”

“Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau’s example.”

“From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.”

“I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.”

“I think as a result of my own personal experiences, that the accusations of fraud against mediums have been much exaggerated.”

“London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”

“My mind rebels at stagnation.  Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.  But I abhor the dull routine of existence.  I crave for mental exaltation.”

“Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person.”

“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”

“Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.”

“Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them.”

“The ideal reasoner, he remarked, would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it.”

“There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.”

“You will, I am sure, agree with me that...  if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.”





For the latest DVDs and books on French cinema...

Home Discover France Write to us Guest book Terms of use DVD Shop

Copyright © filmsdefrance.com 1998-2012