Abusus non tollit usum.
Abuse is no argument against use.
Tag: Scotland
Proverb: Bad Things
A bad thing is dear at any price.
Proverb: Beginnings
A bad beginning has a bad, or makes a worse, ending.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(Ha ha, this is what I’ve been saying for years. Just less eloquently.)
Chapter 12 – The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
“. . . for white folk out there feel their hearts warm to each other as they never do here at home.”
Chapter 10 – The End of the Islander
“One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest.”
Chapter 9 – A Break in the Chain
“Women are never to be entirely trusted — not the best of them.”
Chapter 6 – Sherlock Holmes Gives a Demonstration
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
Chapter 4 – The Story of the Bald-headed Man
“‘Le mauvais goût mène au crime.’ The French have a very neat way of putting these things.”
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(The French translates as ‘bad taste leads to crime’. I have a feeling Doyle is quoting someone else, but I’m too lazy to check. *hides*)
Chapter 3 – In Quest of a Solution
I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I observed that Holmes took his revolver from his drawer and slipped it into his pocket.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(Ah, the good old days when the British could carry guns. Well, presumably. It’s possible Sherlock is carrying it illegally. Nowadays the British can’t carry even a butter knife without a licence.)
Chapter 1 – The Science of Deduction
“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.”
∞
“What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend.”
Chapter 7 – The Conclusion
“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?”
Chapter 6 – A Continuation of the Reminiscences of John Watson, M.D.
There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(I wanted to post another quote from this chapter but that one was kind of spoilery so I figured I shouldn’t. If you have the means and the time, I do recommend reading the book for yourself. This particular story was A Study in Scarlet.)
Chapter 3 – John Ferrier Talks With the Prophet
The victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most terrible description.
∞
The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the Prophet and his mission might be one of those who would come forth at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were nearest his heart.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(As Yoshida Kenkō said: “If you constantly have to beware of disagreeing with someone, in the end it feels as if you are quite alone.”)
Chapter 1 – On the Great Alkali Plain
“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the trees.”
∞
“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ’cause I saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this day on.”
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(Ah, the good old days when you could pick up a child just because you saved them. But seriously, this man is the father of the century.)
Chapter 6 – Tobias Gregson Shows What He Can Do
The Standard commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the sort usually occurred under a Liberal administration.
∞
“‘Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.'”
∞
“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.
⋅ Nota Bene ⋅
(The second quote translates as, “A fool always finds a fool who admires him”. In the third quote, Sherlock is actually sarcastic but I still think it has a point.)
Chapter 5 – Our Advertisement Brings a Visitor
“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,” he answered.
∞
“There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror.”
Chapter 4 – What John Rance Had to Tell
“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.”
Chapter 3 – The Lauriston Garden Mystery
“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.”
Chapter 2 – The Science of Deduction
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
∞
So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.
Chapter 1 – Mr. Sherlock Holmes
Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
∞
“‘The proper study of mankind is man,’ you know.”
Hiraeth 