I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.

In science one must search for ideas. If there are no ideas, there is no science. A knowledge of facts is only valuable in so far as facts conceal ideas: facts without ideas are just the sweepings of the brain and the memory.

Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas.

Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your knowledge - they will be both moral and national if you follow your inspiration freely.

It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile the consensus of St. Petersburg readers is that this novel is intolerably long-winded and therefore terribly boring.

I am strongly convinced that the people or society is the best and the most unerring critic.

In order to have a literature, a nation must live, not merely on the practical, but on the moral and spiritual plane as well, contributing through its national life to the development of some side of the universal spirit of man.