Quote

[Sherlock Holmes:] The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Arthur Conan Doyle
Age: 71 †
Born: 1859
Born: May 22
Died: 1930
Died: July 7
Crime Writer
Essayist
Novelist
Physician
Physician Writer
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle
Sir A. Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan
Sir Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Theories
Temptation
Observation
Data
Sherlock
Profession
Bane
Theory
Premature
Upon
Insufficient
Form
Holmes

More quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Image
Is there any 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.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
Steel True, Blade Straight.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
Life, it turns out, is infinitely more clever and adaptable than anyone had ever supposed.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
The more outré and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
Why should people ever take credit for charity when they must know that they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas in any other fashion?
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will be up to, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says the statistician.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
I cannot live without brainwork. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the duncoloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material?
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
A change of work is the best rest.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
I am inclined to think -' said I. `I should do so,' Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
It is the small men and not the great who hold their noses in the air.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
It is quite a three-pipe problem.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
The more outre' and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Image
Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.
Arthur Conan Doyle