'When I hear you give your reasons,' I remarked, 'the thing always appears to me so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.'

'Quite so,' he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an arm-chair. 'You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear...'

A Scandal in Bohemia

You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

I found the ash of a cigar, which my special knowledge of tobacco ashes enabled me to pronounce as an Indian cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained.

The Stock-Broker's Clerk

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The Sign of Four

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

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

'Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'

'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'

'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'

'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.

Silver Blaze