John Watson Quotes

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise.

I expressed these ideas long before the behaviorists, led by Pavlov in Russia and by Watson in the United States, proclaimed their new psychology. This apparently mechanistic conception is not antagonistic to an ethical conception of life.”
― Nikola Tesla, Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla

“I am lost without my Boswell.

[Sherlock Holmes on Dr. Watson.]”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal in Bohemia

“He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained observer to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes

“I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime; and when Homes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in bullet pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow

“You have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.” My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“No, Sherlock doesn't need another brain. But he could benefit from an extra heart.”
― Guy Adams, Sherlock: The Casebook

“She wondered how Dr. Watson - a clever man in his own right - had lasted so many years without bashing his roommate over the head out of sheer frustration.”
― Emma Jane Holloway, A Study in Darkness

“I had no friends who would call upon me and break the monotony of my daily existence.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“Not that Dr Watson wasn't benign - he was one of the best souls in the Empire - but a man didn't get to be her uncle's right-hand man without a good uppercut and the stamina of a draft horse.”
― Emma Jane Holloway, A Study in Silks

“Sherlock: If the occasional pile of clutter offends you, by all means move it.
John: Last time I tried that I was bitten by a large spider you appeared to be using as a bookmark.”
― Guy Adams, Sherlock: The Casebook

“The relations between us in those latter days were peculiar. He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable. When it was a case of active work and a comrade was needed upon whose nerve he could place some reliance, my role was obvious. But apart from this I had uses. I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He liked to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me--many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead--but none the less, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject. If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of the Creeping Man

“More accurately, on the bed and on the table lay various pieces of what had once been a body.

Holmes was leaning with his back against the wall, his countenance deathly white. "The door was open," he said incongruously. "I was passing by, and the door was open."

"Holmes," I whispered in horror.

"The door was open," he said once more, and then buried his face in his hands.”
― Lyndsay Faye, Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson

“I’d always hated those films—they’d portrayed Dr. Watson as a bumbling idiot, and Sherlock Holmes as an automaton.”
― Brittany Cavallaro, A Study in Charlotte

“You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?"

"For me," said Sherlock Holmes, "there still remains the cocaine-bottle." And he stretched his long white hand up for it.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four

“Suddenly the dreamer disappeared, and Holmes, the man of action, sprang from his chair.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of the Creeping Man

“One other thing, Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the German for ‘revenge;’ so don't lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.” With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“No, the events which I am about to describe were simply too monstrous, too shocking to appear in print. They still are. It is no exaggeration to suggest that they would tear apart the entire fabric of society and, particularly at a time of war, this is something I cannot risk.”
― Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk

“I bet it was also the triumphantAha!and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names - Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like,Yeah!orFuck, yeah!just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around; to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself.”
― Brock Clarke, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

“I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn't we use a little art jargon. There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing are splendid. What's that little thing of Chopin's she plays so magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.” Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“I was forced to agree.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of the Creeping Man

“It is all very well to say that a man is clever, but the reader wants to see examples of it...”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Stand with me here upon the terrace, for it may be the last quiet talk that we shall ever have”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, His Last Bow and The Adventure of the Cardboard Box: Two books one price

“...I could not wish anything better than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular adventures which were the normal condition of his existence.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“The proper study of mankind is man," you know.'
'You must study him, then,”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“Watson. He is our better self.”
― Ken Ludwig, Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery

“Well, Watson.'
'Yes, Holmes?
'I believe the wheel has turned yet again–and now it's back to work!”
― Ken Ludwig, Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery