Jeania

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Jeania.


Ross Poldark
Jeania is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

progress: 
 
  (page 140 of 379)
Apr 07, 2026 02:01PM

 
Loading...
Milan Kundera
“He looked at her and tried to discover behind her lascivious expression the familiar features that he loved tenderly. It was as if he were looking at two images through the same lens, at two images superimposed one on the other with one showing through the other. These two images showing through each other were telling him that everything was in the girl, that her soul was terrifyingly amorphous, that it held faithfulness and unfaithfulness, treachery and innocence, flirtatiousness and chastity. This disorderly jumble seemed disgusting to him, like the variety to be found in a pile of garbage. Both images continued to show through each other, and the young man understood that the girl differed only on the surface from other women, but deep down was the same as they: full of all possible thoughts, feelings, and vices, which justified all his secret misgivings and fits of jealousy. The impression that certain outlines delineated her as an individual was only a delusion to which the other person, the one who was looking, was subject--namely himself. It seemed to him that the girl he loved was a creation of his desire, his thoughts, and his faith and that the real girl now standing in front of him was hopelessly other, hopelessly alien, hopelessly ambiguous. He hated her.”
Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves

Adam Smith
“The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.”
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

W. Somerset Maugham
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Jane Austen
“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”
Jane Austen, Persuasion

Douglas Adams
“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

year in books
Emily S...
1,128 books | 28 friends

Ashley ...
777 books | 42 friends

Amanda ...
190 books | 16 friends

Joshua ...
623 books | 61 friends

Aubrey ...
197 books | 11 friends

bo
bo
188 books | 335 friends

Ensley D
77 books | 2 friends

paula w...
0 books | 28 friends

More friends…
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. CastroThe Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano by Donna FreitasThe School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Mothering fiction
22 books — 4 voters
Gone with the Wind by Margaret MitchellPride and Prejudice by Jane AustenThe Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan KunderaThe Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-ExupéryThe Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Best Books Ever
78,441 books — 292,390 voters

More…



Polls voted on by Jeania

Lists liked by Jeania