It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Arthur Conan Doyle · The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Wit & one-liners
“It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.…”
- Author
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Work
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Year
- 1892
- Length
- 26 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #1661
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1892. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
Related passages
You see, but you do not observe.
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
New passages, now and then
We keep adding passages and collections. Leave your email and we’ll tell you when something new lands.
Optional. One short email per new collection, and nothing else.