Crime Quotes

"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." ~ The Adventure of the Copper Beeches by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Crime is common. Logic is rare." ~ The Adventure of the Copper Beeches by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser." ~ The Adventure of the Copper Beeches by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "I suppose that I am commuting a felony. but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to jail now, and you make him a jail-bird for life." ~ The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits." ~ The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "I think you want a little unofficial help. Three undetected murders in one year won't do, Lestrade. But you handled the Molesey Mystery with less than your usual -- that's to say, you handled it fairly well." ~ The Adventure of the Empty House by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment--as well as the prison." ~ Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky "You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said the police agent loftily. "He has his own little methods, which are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct than the official force." ~ The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify." ~ The Red-Headed League by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "You know my powers, my dear Watson, and yet at the end of three months I was forced to confess that I had at last met an antagonist who was my intellectual equal. My horror at his crimes was lost in my admiration at his skill." ~ The Final Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle