Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

marriage

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends. 68 sayings from Samuel Butler

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. 21 more quotes from Jane Austen

I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage. 3 other quotes from Maria Callas

If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother. 3 sayings from Sam Levenson

It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being. 75 more sayings from Benjamin Disraeli

It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. 21 quotes from Jane Austen

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss volatile spirits prefer unhappiness. 46 quotes from George Santayana

Love is moral even without legal marriage, but marriage is immoral without love. 4 more views from Ellen Key

Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl. 8 thoughts from Stephen Leacock

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity? 68 quotes from Samuel Butler

More belongs to marriage than four legs in a bed. 9 quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married. 75 sayings from Benjamin Disraeli

A bride at her second marriage does not wear a veil. She wants to see what she is getting. 23 more quotes from Helen Rowland

A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted. 23 other views from Helen Rowland

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. 29 sayings from W. Somerset Maugham

A psychiatrist asks a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing. 7 wisdom & wit from Joey Adams

A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers. 2 quotes from Eddie Cantor

Books and marriage go ill together. 15 more sayings from Moliere

Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play. 10 more quotes from William Congreve

Divorce these days is a religious vow, as if the proper offspring of marriage. 10 thoughts from Tertullian

God invented concubinage, satan marriage. 3 quotes from Francis Picabia

Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife. 5 views from Franz Schubert

I've had two terrific relationships, but both ended in marriage. 8 quotes from Jane Seymour

In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar - a practice which is still continued. 23 views from Helen Rowland

It isn't tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of marrying it's separating himself from all the others. 23 other views from Helen Rowland

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards. 96 sayings from Benjamin Franklin

Love is often the fruit of marriage. 15 wisdom & wit from Moliere

Love, the quest marriage, the conquest divorce, the inquest. 23 more quotes from Helen Rowland

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner. 30 more quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it. 29 quotes from W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage is an attempt to solve problems together which you didn't even have when you were on your own. 2 views from Eddie Cantor

Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway. 7 more wisdom & wit from Joey Adams

Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning hand springs or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it. 23 more wisdom & wit from Helen Rowland

Marriage is like wine. It is not be properly judged until the second glass. 5 sayings from Douglas William Jerrold

Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty. 23 other quotes from Helen Rowland

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness. 96 views from Benjamin Franklin

When I get married, it'll be no secret. 19 more views from Elvis Presley

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. 96 wisdom & wit from Benjamin Franklin

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. 32 quotes from Michel de Montaigne

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. 9 quotes from John Steinbeck

Accident counts for as much in companionship as in marriage. 22 more sayings from Henry Adams

An ideal wife is one who remains faithful to you but tries to be just as charming as if she weren't. 5 quotes from Sacha Guitry

If it were not for the presents, an elopement would be preferable. 4 other thoughts from George Ade

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love. 32 thoughts from Michel de Montaigne

It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort. 14 more quotes from Jessica Savitch

Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it. 3 views from Boris Pasternak

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery. 33 quotes from Erma Bombeck

Marriage is an institution and that's where a couple finish up. 3 quotes from Les Dawson

Marriage is like a cage one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out. 32 quotes from Michel de Montaigne

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory. 47 views from Abraham Lincoln

Marriage is too interesting an experiment to be tried only once. 6 more quotes from Eva Gabor

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance. 32 more quotes from Michel de Montaigne

One was never married, and that's his hell another is, and that's his plague. 4 quotes from Robert Burton

The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less. 4 other sayings from Brendan Behan

The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly. 10 views from Peter De Vries

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character. 10 quotes from Peter De Vries

The secret of a good marriage is forgiving your partner for marrying you in the first place. 5 views from Sacha Guitry

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults. 10 other quotes from Peter De Vries

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. 5 quotes from Sacha Guitry

When undertaking marriage, everyone must be the judge of his own thoughts, and take counsel from himself. 13 more quotes from Francois Rabelais

Marriage was all a woman's idea and for man's acceptance of the pretty yoke, it becomes us to be grateful. 6 other quotes from Phyllis McGinley

Marriage! Nothing else demands so much of a man. 11 sayings from Henrik Ibsen

She's been married so many times she has rice marks on her face. 16 thoughts from Henny Youngman

The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. 16 quotes from Henny Youngman

When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you're sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. 18 views from Joseph Campbell

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know. 21 views from Bette Davis

Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did. 21 sayings from Bette Davis

I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year. 21 more quotes from Bette Davis

In a happy marriage it is the wife who provides the climate, the husband the landscape. 3 thoughts from Gerald Brenan

Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history. 11 quotes from Nicolas Chamfort

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage. 81 more sayings from William Shakespeare

Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder. 12 thoughts from Thornton Wilder

Marriage is a mistake every man should make. 2 more quotes from George Jessel

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel. 27 quotes from Leonardo da Vinci

Marriage is miserable unless you find the right person that is your soulmate and that takes a lot of looking. 4 quotes from Marvin Gaye

Marriage is the tomb of love. 4 sayings from Giacomo Casanova

Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three. 18 quotes from Washington Irving

Marriage, laws, the police, armies and navies are the mark of human incompetence. 2 other quotes from Dora Russell

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman. 20 other quotes from Herbert Spencer

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced 'mirage'. 20 other quotes from Herbert Spencer

Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it. 42 quotes from Josh Billings

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. 2 more sayings from George Jessel

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become. 4 views from Coretta Scott King

A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning. 53 other wisdom & wit from Honore de Balzac

Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences. 5 more sayings from Isadora Duncan

I married beneath me, all women do. 3 sayings from Nancy Astor

If I get married, I want to be very married. 14 more thoughts from Audrey Hepburn

Marriage is a good deal like a circus: there is not as much in it as is represented in the advertising. 23 quotes from E. W. Howe

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war. 52 wisdom & wit from Gilbert K. Chesterton

Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity. 53 more thoughts from Honore de Balzac

Never tell a secret to a bride or a groom wait until they have been married longer. 23 more sayings from E. W. Howe

No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman. 53 more quotes from Honore de Balzac

One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul. 53 quotes from Honore de Balzac

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman. 14 other quotes from Joseph Joubert

The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin. 53 more views from Honore de Balzac

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. 43 wisdom & wit from Alexander Pope

This marriage is no one's business but our own. 8 quotes from Bobby Darin

To me, marriage is partly a religious thing and I'm not religious. 5 wisdom & wit from Alastair Campbell

What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? 3 thoughts from Angela Carter

Either marriage is a destiny, I believe, or there is no sense in it at all, it's a piece of humbug. 7 other views from Max Frisch

Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature. 3 sayings from Julia Ward Howe

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love. 18 quotes from Pearl S. Buck

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. 21 wisdom & wit from Mignon McLaughlin

Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him. 53 quotes from Marilyn Monroe

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men. 53 quotes from Marilyn Monroe

Most of these alternative arrangements, so-called, arise out of the ruins of marriages, not as an improvement of old fashioned marriage. 20 views from Christopher Lasch

Never get married in college it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake. 59 other quotes from Elbert Hubbard

Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself. 18 thoughts from Pearl S. Buck

The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits. 2 sayings from John Gay

Well married a person has wings, poorly married shackles. 58 other quotes from Henry Ward Beecher

For after my marriage I had made various attempts to write fiction. They were clearly failures. 3 quotes from Mary Augusta Ward

It became plain very soon after our marriage that ours was to be a literary partnership. 3 quotes from Mary Augusta Ward

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short. 14 quotes from Andre Maurois

A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises. 14 quotes from Andre Maurois

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day. 14 other thoughts from Andre Maurois

All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner. 5 other views from Red Skelton

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious. 24 more sayings from Jean Cocteau

I adore the theater and I am a painter. I think the two are made for a marriage of love. I will give all my soul to prove this once more. 5 wisdom & wit from Marc Chagall

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open. 115 more quotes from George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us. 115 more views from George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity. 115 quotes from George Bernard Shaw

Marriage, like money, is still with us and, like money, progressively devalued. 4 quotes from Robert Graves

One doesn't have to get anywhere in a marriage. It's not a public conveyance. 9 wisdom & wit from Iris Murdoch

The only good husbands stay bachelors: They're too considerate to get married. 3 thoughts from Finley Peter Dunne

There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage. 115 thoughts from George Bernard Shaw

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms. 12 quotes from Franz Kafka

Caesar might have married Cleopatra, but he had a wife at home. There's always something. 5 wisdom & wit from Will Cuppy

He that loves not his wife and children feeds a lioness at home, and broods a nest of sorrows. 8 other quotes from Jeremy Taylor

He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of. 31 other quotes from Mae West

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both. 4 wisdom & wit from Guy de Maupassant

Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends. 22 other wisdom & wit from Samuel Richardson

Love before marriage is absolutely necessary. 22 views from Samuel Richardson

Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution. 31 other quotes from Mae West

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them. 14 wisdom & wit from Ogden Nash

Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself. 8 views from Jeremy Taylor

Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank. 26 other thoughts from Jean de la Bruyere

Never again! I can see no reason for marriage - ever at all. I've had it. Three times is enough. 5 sayings from Ingrid Bergman

To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it Whenever you're right, shut up. 14 quotes from Ogden Nash

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives. 63 thoughts from Samuel Johnson

Bachelors know more about women than married men if they didn't they'd be married too. 60 quotes from H. L. Mencken

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution? 60 quotes from H. L. Mencken

Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes. 9 thoughts from J. B. Priestley

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later for another thing, they die earlier. 60 other quotes from H. L. Mencken

The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. 2 quotes from A. P. Herbert

The critical period of matrimony is breakfast-time. 2 more quotes from A. P. Herbert

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife. 15 wisdom & wit from Cyril Connolly

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest. 60 quotes from H. L. Mencken

But I wanted marriage for myself. I was not calculating about it. I wish I was more calculating. 2 other wisdom & wit from Linda McCartney

Faithful women are all alike, they think only of their fidelity, never of their husbands. 7 wisdom & wit from Jean Giraudoux

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being. 100 thoughts from Oscar Wilde

How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive. 100 quotes from Oscar Wilde

Instead of getting married again, I'm going to find a woman I don't like and give her a house. 2 quotes from Lewis Grizzard

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. 103 thoughts from Friedrich Nietzsche

Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. 6 views from William O. Douglas

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution? 29 quotes from Groucho Marx

Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife she has thought much worse things about you. 13 other sayings from Jean Rostand

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office. 6 wisdom & wit from Rutherford B. Hayes

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. 100 thoughts from Oscar Wilde

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows - marriage does. 29 thoughts from Groucho Marx

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman. 24 thoughts from Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. 100 views from Oscar Wilde

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about. 100 quotes from Oscar Wilde

I had only two offers of marriage in my life, and I refused both. 2 sayings from Catherine Helen Spence

But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband? 7 quotes from Mary Astell

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient. 78 quotes from Voltaire

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. 5 other quotes from Abigail Adams

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. 78 sayings from Voltaire

In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being. 39 more quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave. 32 more views from Martin Luther

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty. 52 sayings from George Eliot

Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses. 39 more quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. 39 quotes from Robert Louis Stevenson

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest. 52 wisdom & wit from George Eliot

Marriage: A friendship recognized by the police. 39 thoughts from Robert Louis Stevenson

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. 74 wisdom & wit from Winston Churchill

The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn't get a divorce for almost a year. 14 more quotes from Hedy Lamarr

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage. 32 other views from Martin Luther

There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. 25 more quotes from C. S. Lewis

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation. 98 views from Mark Twain