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Marriage quotes

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“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!” William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair” - 1847

“BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.” William Shakespeare, “Much Ado About Nothing” - 1600

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“Do anything rather than marry without affection.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can.” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.” William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair” - 1847

“Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.” John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women” - 1869

“Ever since college, I make friends. They get married. I lose friends.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“The public doesn’t mind people living together without being married, providing they don’t overdo it.” Marilyn Monroe, “My Story” - 1974

“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance” - 1893

“the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley” - 1962

“to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “Studies in Pessimism” - 1891

“Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“Though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage I may not prove inferior to yourself.” William Shakespeare, “Henry VI, Part 3” - 1595

“He is the half part of a blessed man, left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fulness of perfection lies in him.” William Shakespeare, “King John” - 1623

“With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes—one of the tragedies of married life.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“Every one has friends who were killed in the War. Every one gives up something when they marry.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.” Bram Stoker, “Dracula” - 1897

“By-and-by we shall take turns, for marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties.” Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women” - 1868

“The only happy marriages I know are marriages of prudence.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“There's no more usual basis of union than a mutual misunderstanding.” Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady” - 1881

“He felt, no doubt, more sorry for her than her indignant relatives; but it seemed to him that the tie between husband and wife, even if breakable in prosperity, should be indissoluble in misfortune.” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“After all, marriage is marriage, and money's money—both useful things in their way ...” Edith Wharton, “The Age of Innocence” - 1920

“Accident counts for much in companionship as in marriage.” Henry Adams, “The Education of Henry Adams” - 1906

“Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“Who on earth but Poirot would have thought of a trial for murder as a restorer of conjugal happiness!” Agatha Christie, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” - 1920

“MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“A poet doesn't want to marry a poetess, nor a philosopher a philosopheress.” Anthony Trollope, “Phineas Redux” - 1874

“Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.” Anthony Trollope, “Phineas Redux” - 1874

“People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better.” Anthony Trollope, “Phineas Redux” - 1874

“However close they are, they're really quite separate. Even if they've been married for fifty years.” Ian Fleming, “Casino Royale” - 1953

“I have noticed since that men usually leave married women alone, and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women. Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them.” Marilyn Monroe, “My Story” - 1974

“To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.” Emma Goldman, “Anarchism and Other Essays” - 1910

“On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable.” Emma Goldman, “Anarchism and Other Essays” - 1910

“Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.” Jane Austen, “Emma” - 1815

“I worship you, but I loathe marriage, I hate its smugness, its safety, its compromise, and the thought of you interfering in my work, hindering me; what would you answer?” Virginia Woolf, “The Voyage Out” - 1915

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.” Thomas Hardy, “Jude the Obscure” - 1895

Related topics

love women wife husband happiness woman men dilemma romance pleasure flirting virtue excitement union morality duty bride possession passion death

Related authors

Oscar Wilde (8)
Jane Austen (6)
Thomas Hardy (5)
William Shakespeare (4)
Virginia Woolf (4)
George Bernard Shaw (3)
Anthony Trollope (3)
William Makepeace Thackeray (2)
Charlotte Brontë (2)
Edith Wharton (2)
Ambrose Bierce (2)
Marilyn Monroe (2)
Emma Goldman (2)
Charles Dickens (1)
Bram Stoker (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Leo Tolstoy (1)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1)
Henry James (1)
Henry Adams (1)

Related sources

Pride and Prejudice (5)
The Importance of Being Earnest (4)
Far from the Madding Crowd (4)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (3)
Man and Superman (3)
Phineas Redux (3)
Vanity Fair (2)
Jane Eyre (2)
Mrs Dalloway (2)
The Age of Innocence (2)
The Devil's Dictionary (2)
My Story (2)
Anarchism and Other Essays (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
Much Ado About Nothing (1)
Henry VI, Part 3 (1)
King John (1)
Dracula (1)
Little Women (1)
Anna Karenina (1)