quotations about marriage
When is it right to marry, and when, after that, is it right to have children? Those are personal questions, and they have personal answers. Answers that are different for different people. But there are rules of thumb, generalizations that hold true more often than society thinks. Our grandparents knew that, but modern America has largely forgotten. Forgotten that the best things in life are actually the purpose of life, and that there is no wisdom in delaying what on our deathbed we will consider the jewels of our existence.
BOB LONSBERRY
A Various Language
What is marriage for?... Toaster ovens and silverware.
E. J. GRAFF
What is Marriage for?
Until we have a natural, that is, a conscientious world, it cannot be known by experience what natural law will do for the gratification of a supreme affection; but, if you will give me that world, there will be in it very few not called to marriage, provided society allows proper opportunities for acquaintance between marriageable persons.
JOSEPH COOK
Marriage: With Preludes on Current Events
The secret to a good marriage, as far as I am concerned, is a joke I make: Keep the fights clean and the sex dirty.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, April 2009
The key to a successful marriage is accepting that you're not going to change the other person. And the words "Yes, dear. Whatever you want."
PATRICK DEMPSEY
Good Housekeeping, July 2011
No marriage is "too dead" for the Lord to restore.
CHARLES R. SWINDOLL
Marriage: From Surviving to Thriving
Marriage is the union of two hearts, without which there can be no marriage; but where this is the case, and the legal ceremony takes place, it is registered in Heaven. A father or mother getting their daughter to marry a man she does not care for is simply selling her, and a sin in all concerned, which cannot turn out for her happiness, but must lead to a life of mental misery and mental degradation. Having given their children a good Christian education, parents have no right to prevent, or try to prevent, their children marrying whosoever they choose, provided there is nothing against the character of the person chosen. Selling a young woman to an old man who is wealthy is a loathsome and disgusting sight; and the young woman should resist such a union at all hazards; for with such a marriage, or so-called marriage, ends all hope of earthly happiness and self-respect.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Marriage", Short Essays
Marriage is a fight to the death, before which the wedded couple ask a blessing from heaven, because it is the rashest of all undertakings to swear eternal love; the fight at once commences and victory, that is to say liberty, remains in the hands of the cleverer of the two.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
In the New Testament a totally new concept of marriage is being introduced; it is directly dependent upon the "Good News" of the Resurrection which was brought to Christ. A Christian is called--already in this world--to experience new life, to become a citizen of the Kingdom; and he can do so in marriage. But then marriage ceases to be either a simple satisfaction of temporary natural urges, or a means for securing an illusory survival through posterity. It is a unique union of two beings in love, two beings who can transcend their own humanity and thus be united not only "with each other," but also "in Christ."
JOHN MEYENDORFF
Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective
You shouldn't marry anyone you have to try hard for.
RACHEL RAY
Good Housekeeping, July 2010
Upon marrying, we need most to pray for one of two things in our partners--the love that blinds, or the good-nature that excuses.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
They stand at the altar before the minister and emotionally utter the words, "I do." It is a pivotal moment--the end of the wedding, but the start of the marriage. This is either the inauguration of a covenant or partnership that either expresses divine love that transcends all or (as is increasingly the case) the fractious nature of a communion unplanned, unevenly yoked, and selfishly formed.
SAM OHENE-APRAKU
foreword, A Purposeful Marriage
Never marry but for love; but see that thou lov'st what is lovely.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Men and women are natural enemies, like cat and dog--only more so. They are forced to live together for a time, or this wonderful race couldn't go on.
NEITH BOYCE
Enemies
Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
speech, spring 1875
Marriage is one thing, and love is another... You need to have a solid canvas; nobody stops you to weave the arabesques.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
Climats
Marriage is not a word, it's a sentence--a life sentence.
DAVID MINKOFF
Oy!
Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same woman, is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow in both cases, excludes us from all enquiry.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
notes, Queen Mab
I think one of the real tests of a stable marriage is being married to a man who worships at the shrine of burnt food -- the back-yard chef.
ERMA BOMBECK
I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression
I never was attached to that great sect,
Whose doctrine is, that each one should select
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion, though it is in the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread,
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world, and so
With one chained friend -- perhaps a jealous foe,
The dreariest and the longest journey go.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Epipsychidion