quotations about marriage
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
MEXICAN PROVERB
That little ditty about love coming first, then marriage, then the baby carriage--it's history. Over the past few decades more and more single people have been having children, and more and more married couples have not been.
BELLA DEPAULO
Singled Out
"Happy marriage" is a contradiction in terms.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
Maybe marriages were made in heaven, but we believe in giving the old-fashioned porch-swing some credit.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
'Tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
The Rivals
God has given the human reality of marriage the nature it has because he wills to integrate it into his divine plan and to make it a means of holiness, of sanctification.
WILLIAM E. MAY
Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built
[Marriage] is the merciless revealer, the great white searchlight turned on the darkest places of human nature.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
The Days Before
Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age -- as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.
PHYLLIS DILLER
attributed, Funny Ladies: The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women
No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.
DANIEL DEFOE
Moll Flanders
One of the best wedding gifts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, "Here's to helping you discover what you're really like!"
GARY & BETSY RICUCCI
attributed, Sacred Marriage
It will perhaps appear extraordinary that in speaking of marriage we have touched upon so many subjects; but marriage is not only the whole of human life, it is the whole of two human lives. Now just as the addition of a figure to the drawing of a lottery multiplies the chances a hundredfold, so one single life united to another life multiplies by a startling progression the risks of human life, which are in any case so manifold.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Spend time, talk it out before you get married. And figure it out. Make sure your really big issues you agree on. How you're going to raise your kids. If you're going to have kids. Your religion. All this kind of stuff. What do you think about money? Your morality? All these things. The big shit. Make sure you talk this stuff out, because this is the stuff that counts, not whether or not he picks up his clothes.
PAT BENATAR
interview, The Believer, May 1, 2003
Love and fairytales are nice, but marriage is technically a contract, and it's worth reading the fine-print before signing your name.
MAUREEN SHAW
"The Sexist and Racist History of Marriage That No One Talks About", Teen Vogue, November 28, 2017
I don't know why some people get worked up about gay people marrying. It's not gay people who are "ruining the sanctity of marriage," it's celebrities.
CRAIG FERGUSON
The Late Show with Craig Ferguson, November 1, 2011
When a match has equal partners, then I fear not.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
attributed, And I Quote
Possibilities for the success of a marriage are endless. But you have to be willing to search for them.
JASON R. REDMOND
Are You Talking?
Marriage ... has historically been a battlefield, the site of collisions within and between governments and religions over who should regulate it. But marriage has weathered centuries of skirmishes and change. It has evolved from an institution that was imposed on some people and denied to others, to the loving union of companionship, commitment, and caring between equal partners that we think of today.
EVAN WOLFSON
Why Marriage Matters
The marriage relationship is one of God's creations for building up people. It gives husbands and wives the chance to minister to an immortal human being in a uniquely intimate fashion. To enjoy the meaningfulness of marriage, then, requires a once-made but ongoing commitment of mutual ministry to our mates and the more we seize them, the more meaning our marriage will have.
LARRY CRABB
The Marriage Builder