A half-truth is a despot...

such as has never been in the world before.
A despot that has its priests and its slaves, a despot to whom all do homage with love and superstition hitherto inconceivable, before which science itself trembles and cringes in a shameful way.

These are your own words, Stavrogin, all except that about the half-truth; that's my own because I am myself a case of half-knowledge, and that's why I hate it particularly.

I haven't altered anything of your ideas or even of your words, not a syllable." "I don't agree that you've not altered anything," Stavrogin observed cautiously.

"You accepted them with ardour, and in your ardour have transformed them unconsciously.