Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains -- however improbable -- must be the truth?

From The Sign of the Four, his 1890 novel featuring Sherlock Holmes.  Sir Arthur, who was born on this date in 1859, was not above recycling his best lines.  He used this one at least four other times -- in "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet" (1892), "Silver Blaze" (1893), "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" (1917), and "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" (1927).  I repeat myself from time to time, so I sympathize with him.