Category: Quotes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Book Cover The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes, #3
Arthur Conan Doyle
mystery, detective
The Strand Magazine
1892
Kindle e-book
Amazon

Comprising the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand, the magazine in which they were first published, this volume won even more popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes is at the height of his powers in many of his most famous cases, including The Red-Headed League, The Speckled Band, and The Blue Carbuncle.

The original “procedural”, but in fiction form and focusing on logic instead of high tech science.

Read between January 02 – May 09, 2011

Quotes and Highlights:

You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.’ There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world.

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.

Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog, …

…as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.

“My God! It’s Watson,” said he. He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with every nerve in a twitter.

41% Note: An interesting early use of @Twitter…

I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley’s No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need.

magnifying lens.

87% First reference to Holmes with a magnifying lens in print that I’ve seen.Like

Dictionary: A Malevolent Literary Device

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.

Ambrose Bierce (—), American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
in The Devil’s Dictionary

 

The Response of the Schoolmaster

This must certainly be the quote of the week from English author Alan Bennett’s play Forty Years On:

Foster: I’m still a bit hazy about the Trinity, sir.
Schoolmaster: Three in one, one in three, perfectly straightforward.  Any doubts about that see your maths master.

 

HARASS SARAH is a PALINdrome, as well as a popular left-wing sport.

This is definitely the quote of the week:

Incidentally, I note that ‘HARASS SARAH’ is a PALINdrome, as well as a popular left-wing sport.

Sol Golomb, mathematician and information theorist
via personal communication while discussing a palindromic word puzzle

The Hidden Player

The chessboard is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.

Thomas Henry Huxley

Paul Halmos on Prerequisites

Definitely the quote of the day:

…[the reader] should not be discouraged, if on first reading of section 0, he finds that he does not have the prerequisites for reading the prerequisites.

Paul Halmos (1916 – 2006, Hungarian-born American mathematician
in Measure Theory (1950)

 

This is essentially the mathematician’s equivalent of the adage “Fake it ’til you make it.”

Jesse Jackson and my signed copy of Green Eggs and Ham

Tonight Jesse Jackson spoke at the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium. I’d recently seen his appearance on Saturday Night Live, so I brought my copy of Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss along with me.

After the lecture I had the chance to meet him and chat, but the best part was the look on his face when I presented him my copy of Green Eggs and Ham for an autograph. He kindly obliged with the observation that he knew that “this” was coming eventually, but said that I was the first one to ask for a signature on this particular book.

He got his second opportunity just moments later when my freshman year roommate Gary showed up with his own copy. Who knew that we thought so much alike?

Saturday Night Live

Transcript of the Saturday Night Live Episode segment