Sherlock Holmes

"It's a matter of professional integrity! No girl wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man's dead or not!"

Irene: "Why are you always so suspicious?"
Holmes: "Should I answer chronologically or alphabetically?"

Holmes: "There is a toxin, refined from the nectar of the rhododendron ponticum. It's quite infamous in the region of Turkey bordering the Black Sea for its ability to induce an apparently mortal paralysis. Enough to deceive even a medical mind as tenacious and well-trained as yours. It's known locally as..."
Mary: "What's wrong with Gladstone?"
Holmes: "...mad honey disease. Oh, he's just demonstrating the very effect I've just described. He doesn't mind."

"How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the wise."

"I wonder if they'd let Watson and me dissect your brain. After you hang, of course. I'd wager there would be some deformity that would be scientifically significant. In that way, at least, you could serve some kind of useful purpose."
[to Lord Blackwood]

"My mind rebels at stagnation! Give me problems! Give me work!"

Inspector: "You know, in another life, you'd have made an excellent criminal."
Holmes: "Yes, and you sir, an excellent policeman."

"You have the grand gift of silence, Watson; it makes you quite invaluable as a companion."