Quotes

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen "Our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for." ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen "But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge." ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all. ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. ~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen "Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." ~ The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted,--not the best of them." ~ The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule." ~ The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective,--especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby." ~ The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle He smiled gently. "It is of the first importance," he said, "not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit, a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor." ~ The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle