As part of an ongoing project on my Twitter feed, I'm delivering stories from the Sherlock Holmes canon in tiny installments of 140 characters or less. I recently finished up "Charles Augustus Milverton," in which the reader is introduced to "the worst man in London" and learns that "...there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge."
The current story is "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger," in which Sherlock Holmes advises: "Your life is not your own...Keep your hands off it...The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world."
Check out my Twitter feed for a daily installment, although I am usually inspired to post more than once a day. And don't forget you can read through the original canon online.