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

Arthur Conan Doyle

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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

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We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.
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My dear Watson, said [Sherlock Holmes], I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.
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The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.
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It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it. If you were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. ~ Sherlock Holmes
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It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
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Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools.
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The approach to the offices of Girdlestone and Co. was not a very dignified one, nor would the uninitiated who traversed it form any conception of the commercial prosperity of the firm in question.
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The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.
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We surely know by some nameless instinct more about our futures than we think we know.
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There are heroisms all round us waiting to be done.
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It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man's energy.
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What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?
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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.
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Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.
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There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.
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