The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes quotes

View Quote Dawes: You wanted to see me, sir?
Professor Moriarty: I'm away for a few weeks, Dawes, and I come back to find my anthurium magenta, my incomparable anthurium magenta, withered, ruined...
Dawes: I can't understand it, sir; I took good care of all the plants.
Professor Moriarty: Did you water them?
Dawes Every day, sir - just as you told me, sir.
Professor Moriarty: Then how does it happen that I find a spider's web spun across the spout of the watering can?
Dawes: That can happen overnight, sir.
Professor Moriarty: Overnight, huh? Then you didn't water them today?
Dawes: There's been so much to do, sir, preparing for your coming back.
Professor Moriarty: Nothing is as important as the care of my flowers. Through your neglect, this flower has died. You've murdered a flower!
Dawes: Why, I'm sorry, sir.
Professor Moriarty: To think that for merely murdering a man I was incarcerated for six whole weeks in a filthy prison cell.
Dawes: A pity, sir!
Professor Moriarty: A travesty on justice!
Dawes: Quite so, sir.
Professor Moriarty: And for this crime, Dawes, you should be flogged, broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered...
Dawes: Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?
Professor Moriarty: ...and boiled in oil!
Dawes: Thank you, sir.
Professor Moriarty: Go away.
Dawes: Yes, sir.

View Quote Inquisitive Stranger: [Watson is lying in the street in order to reconstruct a murder - a stranger stops and stares] I say there, has something happened?
Dr. Watson: Definitely. Would you mind moving back a few paces?
Inquisitive Stranger: Eh, not at all.
Dr. Watson: Thank you.
Inquisitive Stranger: Perhaps I could find a doctor?
Dr. Watson: I'm a doctor. What's the matter with you?
Inquisitive Stranger: I'm all right. I was thinking of you.
Dr. Watson: Why?
Inquisitive Stranger: But... But, aren't you ill?
Dr. Watson: Certainly not. I'm dead.
Inquisitive Stranger: Well. I'm afraid I must be getting off.
[He leaves, hurriedly]
Dr. Watson: Don't let me detain you. Stupid fellow.

View Quote Sherlock Holmes: I've decided to accept your case, Miss Brandon. I shall help you all I can.
Ann Brandon: Oh, thank you.
Jerrold Hunter: We don't want your interference, Mr. Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes: I interfere whenever and wherever I like, Mr. Hunter.

View Quote Sherlock Holmes: Very effective, my dear Watson!
Dr. Watson: Elementary, my dear Holmes, elementary.

View Quote Sherlock Holmes: You've a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society.
Professor Moriarty: That would make an interesting exhibit. Holmes, you've only now barely missed sending me to the gallows. You're the one man in England clever enough to defeat me. The situation has become impossible.
Sherlock Holmes: Have you any suggestions?
Professor Moriarty: I'm going to break you, Holmes. I'm going to bring off right under your nose the most incredible crime of the century and you'll never suspect it until it's too late. That will be the end of you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. And when I've beaten and ruined you then I can retire in peace. I'd like to retire; crime no longer amuses me. I'd like to devote my remaining years to abstract science.

View Quote [Regarding a rabbit's foot] I've always thought those things in very poor taste. Fancy going about with a dead animal's foot dangling from your pocket!

View Quote Elementary, my dear Watson.

View Quote The nose of the police dog, although long and efficient, points in only one direction at a time.

View Quote Whatever Watson has found out, you'll know inevitably. I have unbounded confidence in his lack of discretion.