In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, the grounds for marriage.
~Robert Anderson
The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
~Father Theodore Hesburgh
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
~Leo Tolstoy
I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.
~Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth
One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with each other, it keeps you together until maybe you fall in again.
~Judith Viorst
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
~Albert Schweitzer
Commitment has kind eyes. He wears sturdy shoes. Everything is vivid when he is around. It is wonderful to sit and have lunch in his gardens around harvest time. You can taste in the vegetables that the soil has been cared for.
~J. Ruth Gendler
If the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it’s because they take better care of it.
~Anonymous
I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.
~George Eliot
Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent testimony of God’s love.
~Pope John Paul II
If we are serious about renewing fatherhood, we must be serious about renewing marriage. Healthy marriages are not always possible. But we must remember, they are incredibly important for children. Our hearts know this and our nation must recognize this. None of us is perfect. And so no marriage and no family is perfect. After all, we all are human. Yet, we need fathers and families precisely because we are human. We all live, it is said, in the shelter of one another. And our urgent hope is one of the oldest hopes of humanity, to turn the hearts of children toward their parents, and the hearts of parents toward their young.
~President George W. Bush
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing to a young bride and groom from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943
I am convinced that if we as a society work diligently in every other area of life and neglect the family, it would be analogous to straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.
~Stephen Covey
Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.
~Joseph Barth
Marriage is one long conversation, checkered with disputes.
~Robert Louis Stevenson
The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent and it must be equal.
~Frank Pittman
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.
~Simone Signoret
It is necessary but insufficient to stay married for the children’s sake. It is also necessary to stay happily married for the children’s sake. I’m so glad someone noticed that marriage doesn’t have to make you miserable. It is just so easy to be happy I don’t understand why it isn’t more popular.
~Frank Pittman
Love is no assignment for cowards.
~Ovid
People think they have to find their soul mate to have a good marriage. You’re not going to “find” your soul mate. Anyone you meet already has soul mates – their mother. Their father. Their lifelong friends. You get married, and after 20 years of loving, bearing and raising kids, meeting challenges ñ then you’ll “create” your soul mate.
~Diane Sollee, www.Smartmarriages.com
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
~Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy — it’s supposed to make you married.
~Frank Pittman
The development of a really good marriage is not a natural process. It is an achievement.
~David and Vera Mace
They haven’t found Mr. Right. Maybe there’s just a Mr. OK or Mr. Pretty Good.
~Linda Waite, The Case for Marriage
Love doesn’t commit suicide. We have to kill it. It often simply dies of our neglect.
~Diane Sollee, www.smartmarriages.com
Why would a couple that lives and sleeps together every night need dates and rituals? Precisely because they live and sleep together.
~Bill Doherty, Take Back Your Marriage
If a married couple with children has fifteen minutes of uninterrupted, non logistical, non-problem-solving talk every day, I would put them in the top 5% of all married couples. It’s an extraordinary achievement.
~Bill Doherty, Take Back Your Marriage
Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.
~Dr. Joyce Brothers
Real giving is when we give to our spouses what’s important to them, whether we understand it, like it, agree with it, or not.
~Michele Weiner Davis, Divorce Busting
They do not love who do not show their love.
~Shakespeare
We are, each of us, angels with only one wing, and we can only fly embracing each other.
~Luciano DeCrescenzo
Once it’s established that we are a team, I can demand of you and expect you to demand of me. Life without pain is an addiction and the fantasy of perpetual happiness is like the “delusion of fusion.”
~Carl Whitaker
You did the best that you knew how. Now that you know better, you’ll do better.
~Maya Angelou
Love is a feeling, marriage is a contract, and a relationship is work.
~Lori Gordon, founder of PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills)
All those “and they lived happily ever after” fairy tale endings need to be changed to, “and they began the very hard work of making their marriages happy.”
~Linda Miles, The New Marriage
All those “and they lived happily ever after” fairy tale endings need to be changed to, “and they began the very hard work of making their marriages happy.”
~Linda Miles, The New Marriage
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
~George Eliot
To get divorced because “love has died” is like selling your car because it’s run out of gas.
~Diane Sollee, www.Smartmarriages.com
Love is a four-letter word spelled T-I-M-E.
~Anonymous
People change and forget to tell each other.
~Lillian Hellman
Marriage is the foundation of the family and the family is the foundation of society: if we strengthen marriage, we strengthen the family, we strengthen the children and we strengthen the community. If your goal is to help improve the world, marriage is as good a place as any to start.
~Diane Sollee
Marriage, families, all relationships are more a process of learning the dance rather than finding the right dancer.
~Paul Pearsall
The question is asked, “Is there anything more beautiful in life than a young couple clasping hands and pure hearts in the path of marriage? Can there be anything more beautiful than young love?” And the answer is given, “Yes, there is a more beautiful thing. It is the spectacle of an old man and an old woman finishing their journey together on that path. Their hands are gnarled, but still clasped; their faces are seamed, but still radiant; their hearts are physically bowed and tired, but still strong with love and devotion for one another. Yes, there is a more beautiful thing than young love — old love.”
~Anonymous
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting.
~George Eliot
To keep your marriage brimming
~Ogden Nash
with love in the wedding cup,
whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
whenever you’re right, shut up.
Find the good — and praise it.
~Alex Haley
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
~Thomas Edison
The Time is Now
~Anonymous
If you are ever going to love me,
Love me now, while I can know
The sweet and tender feelings
Which from true affection flow.
Love me now
While I am living.
Do not wait until I’m gone
And then have it chiseled in marble,
Sweet words on ice-cold stone.
If you have tender thoughts of me,
Please tell me now.
And You Wonder Why It Didn’t Last
~Anonymous
She married him because he was such a “strong man”;
She divorced him because he was such a “dominating male.”
He married her because she was so “fragile and cute”;
He divorced her because she was so “weak and helpless.”
She married him because “he is a good provider”;
She divorced him because “all he thinks about is business.”
He married her because “she reminds me of my mother”;
He divorced her because “she’s getting more like her mother every day.”
She married him because he was “happy and romantic”;
She divorced him because he was “shiftless and fun-loving.”
He married her because she was “steady and sensible”;
He divorced her because she was “boring and dull.”
She married him because he was “the life of the party”;
She divorced him because “he’s a party boy.”
Death doesn’t end a relationship. It only changes it.
~”I Never Sang for My Father”
My wife uses fabric softener. I never knew what that stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me, sniffing, then saying under their breath, “Married!” and walking away. Fabric softeners are how our wives mark their territory. We can take off the ring, but it’s hard to get that April fresh scent out of your clothes.
~Andy Rooney
Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it — and some of your spouse’s family does, too.
~Anonymous
The truth has never been of any real value to any human being. It is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
~ Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion, but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate.
~W.H. Auden
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
~William Butler Yeats, from “When You Are Old”
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined… to strengthen each other… to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.
~George Eliot
Take a lump of clay, wet it, pat it,
~Madame Kuan
And make an image of me, and an image of you.
Then smash them, crash them, and add a little water.
Break them and remake them into an image of you
And an image of me.
Then in my clay, there’s a little of you.
And in your clay, there’s a little of me.
And nothing ever shall us sever;
Living, we’ll sleep in the same quilt,
And dead, we’ll be buried together.
I will reveal to you a love potion, without medicine, without herbs, without any witch’s magic; if you want to be love, then love.
~Hecaton of Rhodes
That I may come near to her, draw me nearer to thee than to her; that I may know her, make me to know thee more than her; that I may love her with the perfect love of a perfect, whole heart, cause me to love thee more than her and most of all. Amen. Amen.
That nothing may be between me and her, be thou between us, every moment. That we may be constantly together, draw us into separate loneliness with thyself. And when we meet breast to breast, my God, let it be on thine own.
~Temple Gairdner, prayer before his marriage
Do you think it is easy to change?
~D.H. Lawrence, “Change”
Ah, it is very hard to change and be different.
It means passing through the waters of oblivion.
Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, made nothing?
~D.H. Lawrence, ” Phoenix”
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.
The phoenix renews her youth
only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down
to hot and flocculent ash.
Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest
with strands of down like floating ash
Show that she is renewing her youth like the eagle
Immortal bird.
Grow old along with me!
~Robert Browning, from “Rabbi Ben Ezra”
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, be not afraid!”
Family love is this dynastic awareness of time, this shared belonging to a chain of generations… we collaborate together to root each other in a dimension of time longer than our own lives.
~Michael Ignatieff, “Lodged in the Heart and Memory”
Love is a battle. Love is war. Love is growing up.
~James Baldwin
Apparently I am going to marry Charles Lindbergh. It must seem hysterically funny to you as it did to me, when I consider my opinions on marriage. “A safe marriage,” “things in common,” “liking the same things,” “a quiet life,” etc., etc. All those things which I am apparently going against. But they seem to have lost their meaning, or have other definitions. Isn’t it funny — why does one marry, anyway? I didn’t expect or want anything like this.
Don’t wish me happiness — I don’t expect to be happy, but it’s gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor — I will need them all.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Bring Me a Unicorn
You say, to me-wards your affection’s strong;
~Robert Herrick, “Love Me Little, Love Me Long”
Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Slowly goes farre: The meane is best: Desire
Grown violent, do’s either die, or tire.
Two are better than one; they receive a good reward for their toil, because, if one fails, the other can help his companion up again; but alas for the man who falls alone with no partner to help him up. And, if two lie side by side, they keep each other warm; but how can one keep warm by himself? If a man is alone, an assailant may overpower him, but two can resist; and a cord of three strands is not quickly snapped.
~Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (New English Bible)
…our life reminds me
~Wendell Berry, from “The Country of Marriage”
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers…
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
To be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in…
Out of the ashes of the past, new life is born.
~White Eagle
Everybody thinks of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself.
~Leo Tolstoy
Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up.
~Joseph Barth
People change and forget to tell each other.
~Lillian Hellman
The first duty of love is to listen.
~Paul Tillich
In matters of love, the beginning of the end often turns out to be but the end of the beginning.
~Anonymous
Hidden deep in the heart of things, Thou carest for growth and life: the seed becomes shoot, the bud a blossom, the flower becomes fruit. Tired I slept on my idle bed in the illusion that the work had an end. In the morning I awoke to find that my garden was full of flowers.
~Tagore
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
~Leo Tolstoy
Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.
~Japanese proverb
In this world there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle — this everyone knows, but no one acts accordingly.
~Lao-Tzu
But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.
~Thucydides
A happy marriage is not a gift; itís an achievement.
~Ann Landers
Friendship between two persons depends upon the patience of one.
~Native American proverb
Nothing is plum, level or square:
~Alan Dugan, “Love Song: I and Thou”
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter.
I built the roof for myself, the walls
For myself, the floors
for myself, and got
Hung up in it myself. I
danced with purple thumb
At this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.
There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.
~Lorraine Hansberry
Here’s to matrimony, the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.
~Heinrich Heine
We are not at home where our dwelling is, but where we are understood.
~Christian Morgenstern
The body travels more easily than the mind, and until we have limbered up our imagination we continue to think as though we had stayed at home. We have not really budged a step until we take up residence in someone else’s point of view.
~John Erskine
In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
~Erich Fromm
We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.
~George Eliot
Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says “For the woman I love” and the second, “For my best friend.”
~Unknown
Moonlight and roses are bound to fade
~Unknown
for every lover and every maid
but the bond that holds in any weather
is learning how to laugh together.
Real giving is when we give to our spouses what’s important to them, whether we understand it, like it, agree with it, or not.
~Michele WeinerDavis, Divorce Busting
They do not love who do not show their love.
~William Shakespeare
We are, each of us, angels with only one wing, and we can only fly embracing each other.
~Luciano DeCrescenzo
I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other’s gaps.
~Rocky
The Time is Now
If you are ever going to love me,
~Unknown
Love me now, while I can know
The sweet and tender feelings
Which from true affection flow.
Love me now
While I am living.
Do not wait until I’m gone
And then have it chiseled in marble,
Sweet words on ice-cold stone.
If you have tender thoughts of me,
Please tell me now.
My wife uses fabric softener. I never knew what that stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me, sniffing, then saying under their breath, “Married!” and walking away. Fabric softeners are how our wives mark their territory. We can take off the ring, but it’s hard to get that April fresh scent out of your clothes.
~Andy Rooney
Try praising your wife, even if it does frighten her at first.
~Billy Sunday
My wife says I never listen to her… at least I think that’s what she said.
~Unknown
Married life teaches one invaluable lesson: to think of things far enough ahead not to say them.
~Jefferson Machamer
Monogamy is, most appealingly, an energy-saving device which prevents you wasting time and effort on hunting new prey, deceiving a partner or curing a broken heart or bruised ego. Preserve trust in this essential area of your life and you can reap tremendous rewards: the 100 per cent devotion of another human being fuels your ambition, supports you in your mission and helps you to overcome obstacles. Monogamy has much to offer. We should trumpet its benefits far more loudly in sex-education classes and teen magazines. The chastity pledge “Just say no” has failed to catch on; “Just with you” should be an easier sell.
~Cristina Odone, The Observer
New love is the brightest, and long love is the greatest, but revived love is the tenderest thing known on earth.
~Thomas Hardy
Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one.
~Daniel King, The Village Voice