It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
An ideal wife is one who remains faithful to you but tries to be just as charming as if she weren’t.
—Sacha Guitry (1885–1957) Russian-born French Actor, Dramatist
Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American Author
Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one year a marriage; but pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.
—Chinese Proverb
Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit out of it.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
Marriage isn’t a word… it’s a sentence.
—Indian Proverb
In all of the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of plums.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
The Don Juans among men and the light-o’-loves among women are afraid of marriage.
—Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Austrian Psychiatrist
I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967) French Novelist, Biographer
The man, at the head of the house, can mar the pleasure of the household, but he cannot make it.—That must rest with the woman, and it is her greatest privilege.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) British Essayist, Historian
Pleasant the snaffle of courtship, improving the manners and carriage; but the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible throw bit of Marriage.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Writer, Poet, Novelist, Short Story Author
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
One of the best hearing aids a man can have is an attentive wife.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Every time a woman makes herself laugh at her husband’s often-told jokes she betrays him. The man who looks at his woman and says “What would I do without you?” is already destroyed.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes.
—Amy Grant (b.1960) American Singer-Songwriter
When I think of a merry, happy, free young girl—and look at the ailing, aching state a young wife generally is doomed to—which you can’t deny is the penalty of marriage.
—Queen Victoria (1819–1901) British Royal
Marriage is a snake to slip into your handbag.
—African Proverb
The fact is that my wife if she had common sense would have more power over me than any other whatsoever, for my heart always alights upon the nearest perch.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Marriage is the sunset of love.
—French Proverb
A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting.
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950) American Journalist, Humorist
Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity, and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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.
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
I will remember always that marriage, like life, is a journey – not a destination – and that its treasures are found not just at the end but all along the way.
—Anonymous
I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
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