Marriage Quotes

I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.

That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.

Intimacy is what makes a marriage, not a ceremony, not a piece of paper from the state.

Marriage. It's like a cultural hand-rail. It links folks to the past and guides them to the future.

Happiness just wasn't part of the job description back then. You tried to find a helpmate to keep the cold wind and dogs at bay. Happiness just wasn't part of the equation. Survival was.

I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, and consequently suggests more tugging, and pain, and diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.

What is right for one couple is wrong for another. I would say that there are many more important factors to a happy marriage.

Dude, marriage is the 'get out of loneliness free' card in the Monopoly game of life.

You get married at twenty, you're going to be shocked who you're living with at thirty.

My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid. I miss that sort of security, and that sort of connection with someone.

Though we marry as adults, we don't marry adults. We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative.

When a man is ready to marry, he is often not too particular about the lady.

The ancient saying is no heresy, hanging and wiving goes by destiny.

[Marriage is] a world-without-end bargain.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are may when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

I will fasten on this sleeve of thine: thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine.

O curse of marriage, that we can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites.

By this marriage, all little jealousies, which now seem great , and all great fears, which now import their dangers would then be nothing.

Though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage I may not prove inferior to yourself.

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another...upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the 'not' eternal.

Don't waste too much time trying' to be a better man, ' cause you ain't never gonna be one without a good woman.

The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself. As long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.

Knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most attractive picture of happiness to her. She always watched them as long as she could, delighted to fancy she understood what they might be talking of, as they walked along in happy independence, or equally delighted to see the Admiral's hearty shake of the hand when he encountered an old friend, and observe their eagerness of conversation when occasionally forming into a little knot of the navy, Mrs Croft looking as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her.

I would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in a long engagement.

When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.

That's the thing about marriage. It's a shell game we play with ourselves. We're the suckers and we have to lose, but we play anyway because we lie to ourselves that we can win.

Papa said that I should never be jealous of another's marriage. Whatever joys I imagine them having are just my imaginings. The reality is far more complicated and vast.

Ain't never seen a ski trip fix a marriage.

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.

Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet.

One man's folly is another man's wife.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.

All marriages are mixed marriages.

In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.

The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married for four and a half years.

A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.

If you would marry suitably, marry your equal.

Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest - never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.

Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance will neither last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied.

When I meet a man I ask myself, 'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?'

Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Never say that marriage has more of joy than pain.

A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.

If there was strife and contention in the home, very little else in life could compensate for it.

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.

I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

No man should have a secret from his wife; she invariably finds out.

A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.

She is not perfect. You are not perfect. The question is whether or not you are perfect for each other.

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

I'm a great housekeeper: I get divorced, I keep the house.

A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

Men marry to make an end; women to make a beginning.

I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man.

God help the man who won't marry until he finds a perfect woman, and God help him still more if he finds her.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.

I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.

It takes two to make a marriage a success and only one to make it a failure.

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

My mental hands were empty, and I felt I must do something as a counterirritant or antibody to my hysterical alarm at getting married at the age of 43.

Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.

It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

The appropriate age for marriage is around eighteen for girls and thirty-seven for men.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and the state in which you will find solid happiness.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.

Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge.

The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not you'll become a philosopher.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will; he will
be sure to repent it.

A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.

A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.

I know nothing about sex because I was always married.

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

I think that everyone should get married at least once, so you can see what a silly, outdated institution it is.

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soulmate is the one you are actually married to.

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets.

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.

Wedding: a ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.

Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

Don't marry a man to reform him - that's what reform schools are for.

Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.

Honeymoon: a short period of doting between dating and debating.

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.

I never knew what real happiness was until I got married, and by then it was too late.

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

Ah, yes, divorce...from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.

I'm not upset about my divorce. I'm only upset I'm not a widow.

Whenever you want to marry someone, go have lunch with his ex-wife.

The whole purpose of a husband and wife is that when hard times knock at the door you should be able to embrace each other.

Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife.

It is not the lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

My toughest fight was with my first wife.

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, wheather in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl, and I...fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out.

Remember if you marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year: and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all.

If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.

Married men live longer than single men. But married men are a lot more willing to die.

I know you've been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.

The difference between divorce and legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.

An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.

When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.