The Best of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.

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I've always wondered why these stories were written from Watson's point of view. Some conclusions I've drawn are that Sherlock loves his art too much to simply write about it, and that even if he wrote about it, it wouldn't be a mystery or adventure anymore because everything is so obvious and logical to him, but people like reading about mysteries and adventures so that wouldn't do.

When I write blog posts, I try to tell a story, because I find stories much more compelling than histories. Sometimes I go back and read my posts to relive the memories. Is that narcissistic of me? It feels almost like I'm going through my selfies or something. Anyways, reading them back, parts of my life feel like stories. But I remember those moments, at the time, in the moment. And they didn't feel like stories. They felt like any old day doing any old thing. No dramatic background music or good lighting.

But writing this blog, I get to see more out of life than I've lived, so I live vicariously through it.

http://jealousies.tumblr.com/post/122380719547/jumps-to-conclusions-jumps-too-far-falls-off

I know I'm not the only one who tries to solve mysteries alongside detectives. I've learned that every detail is mentioned for a reason and that there are no coincidences, unless it's part of the strategy to throw the detective off the right track, in which case it wouldn't be a coincidence. Usually toward the end there's an essential piece of evidence discovered that puts it all together and solves everything, but it's not revealed until the detective gives his report and lays out the crime, which means the chances of you solving the mystery is slim. Thus I've learned to jump to absurd conclusions based on hunches, and occasionally arrive at the correct answer. Kinda like House (which I'm currently binge watching).

Jumping to conclusions is not recommended. I've watched too many k-dramas; I know the drill. But I think it's better to make a decision than remain paralyzed in the same place (unless you're at the edge of a cliff I suppose). I probably missed Sherlock's whole point since he said that "it is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data" as "insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts," but on the other hand, he also said that "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," so... :)

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Come at once -- if convenient -- if inconvenient come all the same.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous but you are a conductor of light.

You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.

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

Here I have heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque.

My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.

Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven.

The ideal reasoner would, when he has once been shown a single fact in all it's 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.

Well, I say now, as I said then that 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.

There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather, and the still more miserable ways of our fellow-men.

It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes's requests, for they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with such an air of mastery.

You have a grand gift of silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are not over-pleasant.

Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who when he had an up solved problem upon his mind would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view, until he had either fathomed it, or convinced himself that his data were insufficient.

I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late, than never to learn it at all.

Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal.

I should like to see the solution of so tangled a business.

My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.

But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart.

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.

No, it is not selfishness or conceit. If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing — a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

“Data! data! data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.”

Do you know, Watson, that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation, and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact — of absolute undeniable fact — from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn, and which are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.

See the value of imagination. We imagined what might have happened, acted upon the supposition, and find ourselves justified. Let us proceed.

I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose. That is the advantage of being unofficial.

I don’t know whether you’ve observed it, Watson, but the colonel’s manner has been just a trifle cavalier to me. I am inclined now to have a little amusement at his expense.

“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,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.

For heaven’s sake, don’t get started on a new problem when your nerves are all in shreds.

“I don’t think you need alarm yourself. I have usually found that there was method in his madness.” “Some folk might say there was madness in his method,” muttered the inspector.

This reticence upon his part had increased the somewhat inhuman effect which he produced upon me, until sometimes I found myself regarding him as an isolated phenomenon, a brain without a heart, as deficient in human sympathy as he was pre-eminent in intelligence.

Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.

To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate oneself is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one’s own powers.

It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognise danger when it is close upon you.

I know every move of your game.

All day I turned these facts over in my mind, endeavoring to hit upon some theory which could reconcile them all, and to find that line of least resistance which my poor friend had declared to be the starting-point of every investigation.

“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”

Every problem becomes very childish when once it is explained to you.

What one man can invent another can discover.

The strong, masterful personality of Holmes dominated the tragic scene, and all were equally puppets in his hands.

Well, you call that love, but I should call it selfishness.

You know, Watson, I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal.

Only one important thing has happened in the last three days, and that is that nothing has happened.

The law is as dangerous to us as the criminals are.

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

I have heard your reasons and regard them as unconvincing and inadequate.

Woman’s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male.

She is not in her senses. She is madly in love.

PS: eleanor & park and since you've been gone

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