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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

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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
Aggregate
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Puzzle
Says
Individuals
Percentages
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Remain
Precision
Never
Average
Vary
Men
Constant
Foretell
Number
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Statistics
Statistician
Example
Mathematical

More quotes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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It is a fool's plan to teach a man to be a cur in peace, and think that he will be a lion in war.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo Sapiens! Homo idioticus!
Arthur Conan Doyle
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We had got as far as this, when who should walk in but the gentleman himself, who had been drinking his beer in the taproom and had heard the whole conversation. Who was I? What did I want? What did I mean by asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Anything is better than stagnation.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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The future was with Fate. The present was our own.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the Post-Office bank.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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His love of danger, his intense appreciation of the drama of an adventure--all the more intense for being held tightly in--his consistent view that every peril in life is a form of sport, a fierce game betwixt you and Fate, with Death as a forfeit, made him a wonderful companion at such hours.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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You know my methods. Apply them.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Even the best of us are thrown off some- times.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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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
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The whole force of the State is at your back if you should need it. I'm afraid that all the queen's horses and all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter.
Arthur Conan Doyle