"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."
"I feel that there is reason lurking in you somewhere, so we will patiently grope round for it."
"Hot hate is twin brother to hot love."
"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so."
"My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in hand."
"And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs."
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius . . ."
"By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable."
"How are you? You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."
"Come, Watson, come!" he cried. The game is afoot."
"Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."
------------------------------- Sherlock Holmes
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