Holmes is first described to Watson by a friend, who identifies him as “A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital”… “He is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science.”
“A medical student, I suppose?”
“No – I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of his out-of-the way knowledge which would astonish his professors.”
He is so dedicated to scientific inquiry that he would be willing to poison a friend, not out of malice, but to discover something in the experimental results. (Study in Scarlet)
“I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’ triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had appeared as if by magic upon his wrists.” (Study in Scarlet)
“Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was the most deadly poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that before I ever saw the box at all.”’ (Study in Scarlet)
In describing “The Book of Life”: “it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes of which he had arrived at them they might well consider him a necromancer.”
“The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical – so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese.” (Study in Scarlet)
“Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?” (Sign of Four when Watson yells at Holmes for doing cocaine)
“My dear Holmes,” said I, “this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago.” (“A Scandal in Bohemia”)
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” (Sign of Four)
“There is something positively inhuman in you at times.” (Sign of Four)
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