Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930
portrait circa 1910
Born: 22 May 1859, Edinburgh, Scotland
Died: 7 July 1930, Crowborough, East Sussex, England
Conan Doyle was boarded at a Jesuit prep school, then attended Stonyhurst College before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1876 to 1881. He served as ship's medical officer on two voyages before opening a practice with a classmate which lasted only a short time before he opened his own practice at Portsmouth. He had sold at least one story while studying medicine, a lack of patients gave him time for more, and he avidly played football, cricket, and golf. In 1890 he studied the eye at Vienna, returning to open a London ophthalmology practice which attracted no patients at all according to his autobiography. Wanting to spend more time on his historical novels he killed Sherlock Holmes in 1893, but the public insisted on a return of many years. Conan Doyle undertook two investigations himself, both in closed cases where he was convinced, and eventually proved, that the parties charged were innocent. He covered the Boer War as a journalist and wrote a pamphlet justifying the English position which helped settle wide outrage at the British activities in the war; he believed that this was the reason for his knighthood in 1902. Although his father's surname was Doyle, at some point he began using the compound "Conan Doyle". In addition to the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, he wrote five science fiction novels featuring Professor Challenger, seven historical novels, and a long list of articles, plays, romances, and plays.
Biography from Wikipedia and Sir Conan Doyle website
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Arthur Conan Doyle quotes:
Quotes found : 70 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- "I wonder!" said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let us consider the problem in the light of pure reason." permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - "What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence", returned my companion, bitterly. "The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done." permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to need, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Five Orange Pips", The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) - A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - Any truth is better than indefinite doubt. permalink
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. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - Circumstantial evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - Come what may, I am bound to think that all things are ordered for the best; though when the good is a furlong off, and we with our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in general principles to pull us through. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange", The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1905) - Depend upon it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - "A Case of Identity", The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) - Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces the same effect as if you worked a love-story into the fifth proposition of Euclid. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other. permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? permalink
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Sign of Four (1890)
Quotes found : 70 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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