CHAPTER ONE

To Have and To Hold

Comfort

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter for the other.

 

Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now you will feel no loneliness.

 

Now you are two persons.
But, there is only one life before you.

 

Go now to your dwelling to enter
Into the days of your life together.

 

And may your days be good,
And long upon the earth.

—NATIVE AMERICAN MARRIAGE CEREMONY

Love is the safest place on earth
Protects you from summer storm ’n’ winter’s pain
Love is the only neighborhood to live in
These days . . .

—V. KALI, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET,
“A POEM FOR MICHAEL & J”

 

 

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

—DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK,
19TH-CENTURY POET AND NOVELIST

 

 

We seek the comfort of another. Someone to share and share the life we choose. Someone to help us through the never ending attempt to understand ourselves. And in the end, someone to comfort us along the way.

—MARLIN FINCH LUPUS

Now some people thinks it’s jolly for to lead a single life,

But I believe in marriage and the comforts of a wife.

In fact you might have quarrels, just an odd one now and then,

It’s worth your while a-falling out to make it up again.

—TRADITIONAL ENGLISH FOLK SONG

Wedlock is the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise lounge.

—MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH ACTRESS

 

 

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.

—MARTIN LUTHER, GERMAN 16TH-CENTURY
RELIGIOUS LEADER AND FOUNDER OF PROTESTANTISM

 

 

It’s the strangest thing but I feel really safe with you. You know, like in old movies when people never left each other. I mean, they stayed together forever.

—HARRIET (NANCY TRAVIS) TO CHARLIE
(MIKE MYERS), SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER

 

 

Come, let’s be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. Let’s be a comfortable couple. Now do, my dear!

—CHARLES DICKENS

 

 

Make the calculation—add up the items—and tell me if you don’t think it a pity that you and I should live alone for thirty-two years, when we might as well be happy and comfortable together?

—AMELIA B. EDWARDS,
19TH-CENTURY AUTHOR, HAND AND GLOVE

 

 

There is no such cozy combination as man and wife.

—MENANDER, ANCIENT GREEK DRAMATIST

A man reserves his greatest and deepest love not for the woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.

—GEORGE JEAN NATHAN,
AMERICAN EDITOR AND DRAMA CRITIC

 

 

For indeed I never love you so well as when I think of sitting with you to dinner on a broiled scragg-end of mutton and hot potatoes. You then please my fancy more than when I think of you in . . . , no, you would never forgive me if I were to finish the sentence.

—WILLIAM HAZLITT, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH ESSAYIST, TO SARAH STODDARD

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
. . . in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me,
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To Lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope . . .

—W. H. AUDEN, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“LAY YOUR SLEEPING HEAD”

We’re too old to be single. Why shouldn’t we both be married instead of sitting through the long winter evenings by our solitary firesides? Why shouldn’t we make one fireside of it?

—CHARLES DICKENS

Here all seeking is over,
the lost has been found,
a mate has been found
to share the chills of winter—
now Love asks
that you be united.
Here is a place to rest,
a place to sleep,
a place in heaven.
Now two are becoming one,
the black night is scattered,
the eastern sky grows bright.
At last the great day has come!

—HAWAIIAN SONG

Commitment

I am, as ever, in bewildered awe of anyone who makes this kind of commitment . . . I know I couldn’t do it and I think it’s wonderful they can.

—CHARLES (HUGH GRANT),
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced.

—ROBERT SEXTON,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET AND ARTIST,
“THE VOW”

 

 

We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. We can join one another only by joining the unknown. We must not be misled by the procedures of experimental thought: in life, in the world, we are never given two known results to choose between, but only one result: that we choose without knowing what it is . . .

—WENDELL BERRY,
AMERICAN POET AND ESSAYIST,
“THE COUNTRY OF MARRIAGE”

 

 

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, AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT,
THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH

A marriage between mature people is not an escape but a commitment shared by two people that becomes part of their commitment to themselves and society.

—BETTY FRIEDAN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN FEMINIST AND WRITER

Communication

Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

—OSCAR WILDE,
19TH-CENTURY IRISH AUTHOR AND PLAYWRIGHT

 

 

The reason why lovers are never weary of one another is this—they are always talking of themselves.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD,
17TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER,
MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

 

 

More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

—JOHN DONNE, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN

 

 

Before marriage, a man will lie awake thinking about something you said; after marriage he’ll fall asleep before you finish saying it.

—HELEN ROWLAND,
AMERICAN HUMORIST, A GUIDE TO MEN

The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.

—BILL COSBY

 

 

The first duty of love is to listen.

—PAUL TILLICH,
20TH-CENTURY PHILOSOPHER

 

 

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

—OLIVER BARRETT (RYAN O’NEAL), LOVE STORY

 

 

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short.

—ANDRÉ MAUROIS, 20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

We can’t profess love without talking through hand puppets.

—DAVID SEDARIS,
DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM

 

 

Married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.

—CHINESE PROVERB

Conviction

Nothing, nothing can keep me from my love
Standing on the other shore.

 

Not even old crocodile
There on the sandbank between us
Can keep us apart.

 

I go in spite of him,
I walk upon the waves,
Her love flows back across the water,
Turning waves to solid earth
For me to walk on.

—LOVE POEMS OF ANCIENT EGYPT,
TRANSLATED BY EZRA POUND AND NOEL STOCK

 

 

This kind of certainty comes, but once in a lifetime.

—ROBERT KINCAID (CLINT EASTWOOD),
THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY,
BASED ON THE ROBERT JAMES WALLER NOVEL

 

 

Do you know what it’s like to love someone so much, that you can’t see yourself without picturing her? Or what it’s like to touch someone, and feel like you’ve come home? What we had wasn’t about sex, or about being with someone just to show off what you’ve got, the way it was for other kids our age. We were, well, meant to be together. Some people spend their whole lives looking for that one person. I was lucky enough to have her all along.

—JODI PICOULT,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AUTHOR, THE PACT

I haven’t been so sure about anything since I got baptized.

—DENISE MATTHEWS (AKA VANITY),
SINGER, ON HER MARRIAGE

 

 

I knew it the minute I set eyes on you, you were the gal for me. I’ll go get cleaned up a bit and root out a preacher.

—ADAM (HOWARD KEEL)
TO MILLIE (JANE POWELL),
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS

 

 

I absolutely and totally and utterly adore you and I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world and more importantly I genuinely believe and have believed for some time now that we can be best friends. What do YOU think?

—HONEY (EMMA CHAMBERS),
NOTTING HILL

I could open the doors
and the windows
to great winds.
let everything be scattered
like
loose
sheets of paper.
let tumbling take sense and
proportion from what we have
put in order
that suits us.
but it would not change
anything.
but it would not change
anything.
You have come in,
And your entrance
has been final.
You do not leave me,
nor do I leave you, beloved.
We have made of this house
our place
and our shelter.
When we go out, we will go out
together.

—TED ENSLIN, CONTEMPORARY POET,
“THE PLACE POEM—3”

Go seek her out all courteously,
And say I come,
Wind of spices whose song is ever
Epithalamium.
O, hurry over the dark lands
And run upon the sea
For seas and land shall not divide us
My love and me.
Now, wind, of your good courtesy
I pray you go,
And come into her little garden
And sing at her window;
Singing: The bridal wind is blowing
For Love is at his noon;
And soon will your true love be with you,
Soon, O soon.

—JAMES JOYCE, 20TH-CENTURY IRISH WRITER, “POEM
XIII: CHAMBER MUSIC”

Go little ring to that same sweet
That hath my heart in her domain . . .

—GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 14TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR, THE CANTERBURY TALES

 

 

If a man really loves a woman, of course he wouldn’t marry her for the world if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she could by any possibility marry.

—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

I think we all know that when you fall in love, the emptiness kind of drifts away . . . because you find something to live for. Each other. And the way I see you two looking into each other’s eyes all day long, I can tell that you’re going to live for each other for the rest of your lives.

—ROBBIE (ADAM SANDLER),
THE WEDDING SINGER

 

 

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

—HARRY (BILLY CRYSTAL) TO SALLY (MEG RYAN),
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

 

 

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

—GENESIS 29:20, HOLY BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

To love someone is to see
a miracle invisible to others.

—FRANÇOIS MAURIAC,
20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

As the ant brought to Solomon the King
The thigh of a grass-hopper as an offering,
So do I bring my soul, beloved, to thee.
I have placed my head and my heart
On the sill of the door of my love.
Step gently, child!

—LOVE SONG OF THE TURKOMAN

 

 

Westley and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that, not with a thousand hounds. And you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.

—BUTTERCUP (ROBIN WRIGHT),
THE PRINCESS BRIDE

You are my husband,
My feet shall run because of you.
My feet dance because of you.
My heart shall beat because of you.
My eyes see because of you.
My mind thinks because of you.
And I shall love because of you.

—ESKIMO LOVE SONG

 

 

He credited her with a number of virtues, of the existence of which her conduct and conversation had given but limited indications. But, then, lovers have a proverbial power of balancing inverted pyramids, going to sea in sieves, and successfully performing kindred feats impossible to a faithless and unbelieving generation.

—LUCAS MALET (MARY ST. LEGER HARRISON),
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found,
Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!

—JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER,
PARADISE LOST, BOOK V

 

 

Listen to me, Mister. You’re my knight in shining armor . . . don’t you forget it.

—ETHEL (KATHARINE HEPBURN)
TO NORMAN (HENRY FONDA),
ON GOLDEN POND

 

 

No man ever forgot the visitation of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things anew; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry and art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the morning and the night varied enchantments; . . . when he became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one was gone.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 19TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN POET AND ESSAYIST

I got me flowers to strew Thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.

 

The Sunne arising in the East,
Though He give light & th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.

 

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.

—GEORGE HERBERT, 17TH-CENTURY
BRITISH POET, “EASTER”

 

 

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days—three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain . . .

—JOHN KEATS, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
IN A LETTER TO FANNY BRAWNE

No angel she; she hath no budding wings;
No mystic halo circles her bright hair;
But lo! the infinite grace of little things,
Wrought for dear love’s sake, makes her very fair.

—JAMES BENJAMIN KENYON, 19TH-CENTURY WRITER

. . . walk through life in dreams
out of love of the hand that leads us.

—ANTONIO MACHADO, 20TH-CENTURY SPANISH POET,
“REBIRTH,” TRANSLATED BY ROBERT BLY

Though heaven’s wheel be mired down, lovers’ lives go forward.

Let other people be downcast, the lover is blissful and sprightly.

Invite a lover into each dark corner. The lover is bright as a hundred thousand candles!

Even if a lover seems to be alone, the secret Beloved is nearby.

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ, 13TH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET

But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, 20TH-CENTURY
FRENCH WRITER, THE LITTLE PRINCE

This is a charm I set for love; a woman’s charm of love and desire;

A charm of God that none can break: You for me and I for thee and for none else;

Your face to mine and your head turned away from all others.

—IRISH SAYING

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till lov’d? were we not wean’d till then
But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleeper den?
T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir’d, and got, t’was but a dreame of thee.

 

And now good morrow to our waking soules,
Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And make one little roome, an every where.
Let sea-discoverers to new world have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.

 

My face in thine eye, thine in mine apears,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
Why ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

—JOHN DONNE, 17TH-CENTURY
BRITISH POET AND CLERGYMAN,
“THE GOOD MORROW”

Courtship

I’m asking you to marry me . . . I only want to take care of you. I will not leave you like that Dutch boy with your finger in the dam.

—JOHHNY CASH (JOAQUIN PHOENIX)
TO JUNE CARTER (REESE WITHERSPOON),
WALK THE LINE

 

 

If you don’t marry him, you haven’t caught him, he’s caught you.

—SHOTZIE (LAUREN BACALL),
HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

 

 

It was so much fun we proposed to each other all day long.

—MELISSA ERRICO, AMERICAN ACTRESS, ON BEING
PROPOSED TO BY TENNIS STAR PATRICK MCENROE

 

 

Dearest,—I wish I had the gift of making rhymes, for methinks there is poetry in my head and heart since I have been in love with you. You are a Poem. Of what sort, then? Epic? Mercy on me, no! A sonnet? No; for that is too labored and artificial. You are a sort of sweet, simple, gay, pathetic ballad, which Nature is singing, sometimes with tears, sometimes with smiles and sometimes with intermingled smiles and tears.

—NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 19TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN WRITER, TO SOPHIA PEABODY

 

 

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

—GEORGE ELIOT,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST

 

 

The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.

—CHARLES CALEB COLTON,
19TH-CENTURY WRITER AND POET, LACON

 

 

We attract hearts by the qualities we display: we retain them by the qualities we possess.

—JEAN SUARD,
19TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Courtship to marriage is but as the music in the playhouse till the curtain’s drawn.

—WILLIAM CONGREVE,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH DRAMATIST

Things are a little different now. First you have to be friends. You have to like each other. Then you neck, this could go on for years. Then you have tests. Then you get to do it with a condom. The good news is you split the check.

—JAY (ROB REINER), SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

 

 

Once it was see somebody, get excited, get married. Now it’s read a lot of books, fence with a lot of four-syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can’t tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam.

—STELLA (THELMA RITTER), REAR WINDOW

 

 

I am very certain that if we were married together, it would not be long before we should both be very miserable. My wife must have a character directly opposite to my dear Zelide, except in affection, in honesty, and in good humour . . .

Defend yourself . . . Tell me that you will make a very good wife.

—JAMES BOSWELL,
18TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH BIOGRAPHER

 

 

Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16TH U.S. PRESIDENT

 

 

“I am very happy,” said Popinot. “If you would lighten all my fears—in a year I shall be so prosperous that your father cannot object when I speak to him of our marriage. From henceforth I will sleep only five hours a night.”

“Do not injure yourself,” said Cesarine, with an inexpressible accent, and a look in which Popinot was suffered to read her thoughts.

—HONORÉ DE BALZAC,
19TH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVELIST,
CESAR BIROTTEAU

I can boast not wealth nor birth
Think you these alone have worth
Surely health, a heart that’s true
A hand that can protect you too,
Are gems and these I proffer you.

—FROM A VICTORIAN CARD

 

 

Come here to me, we’ll put an end to all the gossip, exchange rings, pay our visits, and then we’ll be betrothed . . .

I even love all the perfectly mad things that you do; when you lie, you lie as only a poet, as only I can lie; I love you because your mouth is so beautiful and your little teeth are so pearly white; when you’re angry I love you because your deep eyes spit fire; I love you because you’re so horribly clever and greedy, because you write your disagreegable business letters for my sake.

—AUGUST STRINDBERG,
20TH-CENTURY SWEDISH
DRAMATIST AND NOVELIST

 

 

May we harbor the flattering hope that you will agree to this marriage not only because of filial obedience and duty?

If your Imperial Highness has but the slightest affection for us we will cultivate this feeling with the greatest pains, and make it our supreme task ever to seek your happiness in every respect. In this way we fondly hope to win your complete affection some day. That is our most fervent wish, and we beg your Imperial Highness to be favorably inclined to us.

—EMPEROR NAPOLEON I TO THE
ARCHDUCHESS MARIA LOUISE OF AUSTRIA

 

 

Thank God it is not a dream; Jane loves me! She loves me! And I swear by the Immortal Powers that she shall yet be mine, as I am hers, through life and death and all the dark vicissitudes that wait us here and hereafter.

—THOMAS CARLYLE, 19TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH
HISTORIAN AND ESSAYIST, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

 

 

Don’t you agree that if a man says he loves a girl he ought to marry her?

—TRACEY LORD (KATHARINE HEPBURN),
PHILADELPHIA STORY

 

 

Marry Joan, cry I still, but wilt thou marry me, Joan? I know thou doest love Will the Taylor, who, it is true, is a very quiet man and foots it most fetuously; but I can tell thee, Joan, I think I shall be a better man than he very shortly, for I am learning of a fiddler to play on the kit, so that if you will not yield the sooner, I will ravish thee ere long with my music . . . Law ye what a happy day that would be, to see thee with thy best clothes on, at Church, and the Parson saying, I, Hodge, take thee Joan, and by the Mass I would take thee and hug thee and buss thee, and then away to the Alehouse . . .

—SAMUEL RICHARDSON,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER,
FAMILIAR LETTERS ON IMPORTANT OCCASIONS

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

—SONG OF SOLOMON 2:10–13, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

I begin this letter by indicating its contents; it is to ask you for the supreme thing that you can give away in this world: the hand of your daughter.

—PRINCE OTTO VON BISMARCK,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN CHANCELLOR

 

 

When [she] surrendered, it was with a shy, reluctant grace. Hers was not a passionate nature, but a loving one; feeling with her was not a single, simple emotion, but a complicated one of many impulses—of self-diffidences, of deep, strange aspirations that she herself could scarcely understand.

—ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST, OLD KENSINGTON

 

 

“Come here, Véronique,” said Gordon Romilly, holding out his arms to receive her, “come here, and tell me, if you’ll be my little wife?”

“Votre femme,” exclaimed the girl, without moving from her position, “Monsieur! C’est impossible, je ne peux pas le croire.”

“Say that it shall be so, Véronique, and I’ll soon make you believe it! But, perhaps, you would rather not?”

“Monsieur!” In a tone of remonstrance.

“Well, come down here, then, and tell me what you wish.”

She advanced a few steps timidly toward him, and he put out his hand and pulled her down the remainder of the flight, until she rested in the circle of his embrace.

“Will you marry me, Véronique?” Kissing her.

“Mais oui, Monsieur.”

“Will you be my wife?” Kissing her again.

“Mais oui, Monsieur.”

“Will you ever call me, ‘Monsieur’ again?”

“Mais oui, Monsieur,” replied Véronique, not knowing what she said.

—FLORENCE MARRYAT,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST, VÉRONIQUE

All things do go a-courting,
In earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single
But thee in His world so fair.

—EMILY DICKINSON, 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
THE COMPLETE POEMS

Think not because you now are wed
That all your courtship’s at an end.

—ANTONIO HURTADO DE MENDOZA,
17TH-CENTURY SPANISH POET

The Oriole weds his mottled mate,
The Lily weds the bee;
Heaven’s marriage ring is round the earth,
Let me bind thee?

—FROM A VICTORIAN CARD

I cannot sleep but with a great deal of disturbance, I have not the same advantage of air as other men, I do not so much breathe as sigh. This is the condition I have been in ever since I saw you last, and now, Madam, that I have made known my torments to you. Give me leave to tell you that there is nothing in this world can give me anything of ease but one line from your Ladyship, for which I as earnestly beg as I would for a morsel of bread if I were ready to starve . . . I beg that you would be pleased sometime that I am, Madam, your Ladyship’s most humble and dutiful servant.

—JOHN RUSSELL, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH
STATESMAN, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

 

 

You might be happy without me—you could never be unhappy through me. You might give yourself to another, but none could love you more purely or tenderly than I. To no one could your happiness be more sacred than it was and always will be to me. I dedicate my very existence and everything in me, everything, my dearest, to you, and if I strive to make myself more noble, it is only to make myself more worthy of you, to make you happier . . .

I consign all the joys of my life to you. I can think of my joys under no other form than your image.

—FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER,
20TH-CENTURY GERMAN WRITER

 

 

You are apprehensive of losing your liberty; but could you but think with how many domestic pleasures the sacrifice will be repaid, you would no longer think it very frightful.

—SIR WALTER SCOTT, 19TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH
WRITER, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

Oh, Bathsheba, promise—it is only a little promise—that if you marry again, you will marry me!

—THOMAS HARDY, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH
NOVELIST AND POET, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

 

 

Johnny, it’s for luck. I mean, a man proposes to a woman, he should kneel down.

—LORETTA (CHER), MOONSTRUCK

 

 

In times past (as I remember) you were minded that I should marry you . . . and puts me upon enquiring whether you will be willing that I should marry you now, by becoming your Husband; Aged, and feeble, and exhausted as I am, your favorable Answer to this Enquiry, in a few Lines, the Candor of it will much oblige, Madam, your humble Servt.

—SAMUEL SEWALL, 18TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN JURIST, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove,
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks

—JOHN DONNE, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN, “THE BAIT”

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountains yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds’ swains all dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

—CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE,
16TH-CENTURY BRITISH DRAMATIST,
“THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE”

 

 

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

—SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6–7, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

In a word, you must give me either a fan, a mask, or a glove you have worn, or I cannot live; otherwise you must expect I’ll kiss your hand, or, when I next sit by you, steal your handkerchief. You yourself are too great a bounty to be received at once; therefore I must be prepared by degree, lest the mighty gift distract me with joy.

—RICHARD STEELE, 18TH-CENTURY IRISH ESSAYIST,
PLAYWRIGHT AND STATESMAN, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

 

 

Talking of widows—pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob—because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot live long—she has sold all the provinces in France already—I know not the woman I should like so well for her substitute as yourself.

—LAURENCE STERNE,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST

 

 

JULIET:

Good-night, good-night, as sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

ROMEO: O! wilt though leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET: What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?

ROMEO: The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIET:

I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, And yet I would it were to give again.

ROMEO: Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?

JULIET:

But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, both are infinite.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
ROMEO AND JULIET

More than forty-eight hours have passed without my taking the smallest nourishment. Oh let me not live so. Death is certainly better than this—which if in forty-eight hours it has not occurred must follow; for by all that is holy, till I am married I will eat nothing, and if I am not married the promise will die with me. I am resolute. Nothing shall alter my resolution.

—AUGUSTUS FREDERICK,
DUKE OF SUSSEX, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

 

 

I would have laughed myself sick a month ago if I had been told that I would suffer, suffer joyfully, as I have been doing for this past month. Tell me, with all the candor that is yours: Will you be my wife? If you can say yes, boldly, with all your heart, then say it, but if you have the faintest shadow of doubt, say no. For heaven’s sake, think it over carefully. I am terrified to think of a no, but I am prepared for it and will be strong enough to bear it. But it will be terrible if I am not loved by my wife as much as I love you!

—LEO TOLSTOY, 19TH-CENTURY RUSSIAN NOVELIST,
TO HIS FUTURE WIFE, SONYA-BERS

 

 

I wish I were a young lord and you were unmarried. I should make you the best husband in the world . . .

—JONATHAN SWIFT, 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR AND SATIRIST

 

 

Tell me what you intend to do for me. I will take infinite pains to deserve your love and friendship, and will always strive to keep you from regretting your decision to marry me. There is just one more thing I must mention: I have a daughter ten years of age, whom I idolize.

—FIELD MARSHAL GEBHARD LEBERCHT VON
BLÜCHER, 19TH-CENTURY PRUSSIAN GENERAL

Dear Charles,

On the basis of affection, admiration and common interests I should find marrying you a delightful pact for mutual benefit. Should it, as a contract, prove otherwise, I assure you I would be entirely tractable and undemanding; if a mistake emotionally speaking, I assure you—“that I can go like snow and leave no trace behind.”

Alice
—LETTER CITED IN WILL YOU MARRY ME?
BY HELENE SCHEU-RIESZ

Who shall have my fair lady!
Who but I, who but I, who but I?
Under the green leaves!
The fairest man
That best love can,
Under the green leaves!

—ANONYMOUS

—Consent, consent, consent to be
—My many-branched, small and dearest tree.

—DELMORE SCHWARTZ, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
POET, “WILL YOU PERHAPS CONSENT TO BE”

 

 

There is only one situation I can think of in which men and women make an effort to read better than they usually do. When they are in love and reading a love letter, they read for all they are worth. They read every word three ways; they read between the lines and in the margins . . . They may even take the punctuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read.

—MORTIMER ADLER, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
DRAMATIST AND PHILOSOPHER

I will teach her to know that the man who loves her can seek no other wife;—that no other mode of living is possible to him . . . than one in which he and Marion Fay shall be joined together. I think I shall persuade her at last that such is the case. I think she will come to know that all her cold prudence and worldly would-be wisdom can be of no avail to separate those who love each other. I think that when she finds that her lover so loves her that he cannot live without her, she will abandon those fears as to his future fickleness, and trust herself to one of whose truth she will have assured herself.

—ANTHONY TROLLOPE, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH NOVELIST, MARION FAY

 

 

Marry, if you can feel love; marry, and be happy. Honor! Virtue! Yes, I have both; and I will not forfeit them. Yes, I will merit your esteem and my own—by actions, not words . . .

—MARIA EDGEWORTH,
19TH-CENTURY NOVELIST, THE ABSENTEE

 

 

“If I speak clumsily, I will ask you to excuse me. I have only known you for three months, and that is but a little time. I should have laughed three months ago to think that such a love”—the word cost him great and evident effort, and it was plain that it was sacred to him; the listener knew it—“could have grown in a man’s heart in such a time. But it has grown there, and my life is in your hands. I ask a great thing—I ask a thing of which I know I am unworthy—I ask you to share my life with me. It shall be my continual study to make you happy.” There his very earnestness broke him down.

“. . . Give me an answer now!” he murmured, with pleading eyes fastened on her face—“give me an answer now!” This was a phase of love-making on which Constance had not counted, and it was new to her. The man was kissing one hand, and had possessed himself of the other,—a prodigious and unheard-of situation. It was not unpleasant, though at first a little alarming. “Say Yes,” said this audacious Gerard, murmuring with his breath upon her cheek, and both her hands in his.

—D. CHRISTIE MURRAY,
19TH-CENTURY WRITER, VAL STRANGE

 

 

Don’t call honest love foolishness . . . Sure, why would we have hearts in our bodies if we didn’t love? Sure, our hearts would be of no use at all without we wor [sic] fond of one another . . . I must have your answer.

—SAMUEL LOVER,
19TH-CENTURY IRISH WRITER, RORY O’MORE

 

 

Miss Adorable

By the same Token that the Bearer hereof satt up with you last night I hereby order you to give him, as many Kisses, and as many Hours of your Company after 9 O’clock as he shall please to Demand and charge them to my Account: This Order, or Requisition call it which you will is in Consideration of a similar order Upon Aurelia for the like favour, and I presume I have good Right to draw upon you for the Kisses as I have given two or three Millions at least, when one has been received, and of Consequence the Account between us is immensely in favour of.

Yours,
John Adams
—JOHN ADAMS, 2ND U.S. PRESIDENT,
TO HIS FUTURE WIFE

Devotion

Charles is life itself
pure life force, like sunlight—
and it is for this that I
married him and this is
what holds me to him—
caring always,
caring desperately

what happens to him and
whatever he happens
to be involved in.

—ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH,
AMERICAN WRITER AND WIFE OF
AVIATOR CHARLES LINDBERGH

My hand is lonely for your clasping, dear;
My ear is tired waiting for your call.
I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer;
Heart, soul and senses need you, one and all.
I droop without your full, frank sympathy;
We ought to be together—you and I;
We want each other so, to comprehend

The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought.

Companion, comforter and guide and friend,
As much as love asks love, does thought ask thought.
Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly,
We ought to be together, you and I.

—HENRY ALFORD, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND SCHOLAR, “YOU AND I”

There’s nothing in all the world I want but you—and your precious love—All material things are nothing . . . and I’d do anything—anything—to keep your heart for my own—I don’t want to live—I want to love first and live incidentally . . . Don’t you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered—and I was delivered to you.

—ZELDA SAYRE TO HER HUSBAND,
WRITER F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

 

 

Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but my own! I was looking up . . . it was the nearest thing to heaven! You were there . . .

—TERRY MCKAY (DEBORAH KERR),
AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

An orange on the table
Your dress on the rug
And you in my bed
Sweet present of the present
Cool of night
Warmth of my life.

—JACQUES PRÉVERT, 20TH-CENTURY FRENCH POET,
“ALICANTE,” TRANSLATED BY
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

 

 

I do know the curves of your face. And I know every fleck of gold in your eyes. I know that the night at the park was the best time I’ve ever had.

—STEVE (MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY) TO MARY
(JENNIFER LOPEZ), THE WEDDING PLANNER

Your eyes are not always brown. In
the wild of our backyard they are light
green like a sunny day reflected
in the eyes of a frog looking
at another frog. I love your love,
it feels dispensed from a metal tap
attached to a big vat gleaming
in a giant room full of shiny whispers.
I also love tasting you after a difficult
day doing nothing assiduously.
Diamond factory, sentient mischievous
metal fruit hanging from the trees
in a museum people wander into thinking
for once I am not shopping. I admire
and fear you, to me you are an abyss
I cross towards you. Just look
directly into my face you said and I felt
everything stop trying to fit. And
The marching band took a deep collective
breath and plunged back into its song.

—MATTHEW ZAPRUDER, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN POET, “MORNING POEM”

When the breeze inflates
Your two robes of silk, you look like a
Goddess enveloped in clouds.
When you pass, the flowers
Of the mulberry tree drink in
Your perfume. When you carry the lilacs
That you have gathered, they
Tremble with joy . . .
When a beggar beholds you,
He forgets his hunger.

—ANONYMOUS, CHINESE LOVE LYRICS,
TRANSLATED BY GERTRUDE L. JOERISSEN

I want the deepest, darkest, sickest parts of you that you are afraid to share with anyone because I love you that much.

—LADY GAGA

How much do I love thee?
Go ask the deep sea
How many rare gems
In its coral caves be,
Or ask the broad billows,
That ceaselessly roar
How many bright sands
So they kiss on the shore?

—MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith,
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

—ROBERT BURNS, 18TH-CENTURY
SCOTTISH POET, “A RED, RED ROSE”

All paths lead to you
Where e’er I stray,
You are the evening star
At the end of day.

All paths lead to you
Hill-top or low,
You are the white birch
In the sun’s glow.

All paths lead to you
Where e’er I roam.
You are the lark-song
Calling me home!

—BLANCHE SHOEMAKER WAGSTAFF,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

I see thee better—in the Dark—
I do not need a Light—
The Love of Thee—a Prism be—
Excelling Violet—. . .

What need of Day—
To Those whose Dark hath so—surpassing Sun—
It deem it be—Continually—
At the Meridian?

—EMILY DICKINSON, 19TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN POET, THE COMPLETE POEMS

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,—what bitter wrong
Can the earth do us, that we should not long
Be here contented! Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved—where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits and permit
A place to stand and love in or a day . . .

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH POET, SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

Distance—is not the Realm of Fox
Nor by Relay of Bird
Abated—Distance is
Until thyself, Beloved

—EMILY DICKINSON, 19TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN POET, THE COMPLETE POEMS

Some say cavalry and others claim
Infantry or a fleet of long oars
Is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is
The one you love.

—SAPPHO, ANCIENT GREEK POET

You have become mine forever.
Yes, we have become partners.
I have become yours.
Hereafter, I cannot live without you.
Do not live without me.
Let us share the joys.
We are word and meaning, united.
You are thought and I am sound.

—HINDU MARRIAGE POEM

 

 

The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved is like a rowe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

—SONG OF SOLOMON 2:8–9, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

I am a crystal goblet in my Love’s hand.
Look into my eyes if you don’t believe me.

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ,
13TH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET

My boat glides swiftly
beneath the wide cloud-ridden sky,
and as I look into the river
I can see the clouds drift by the moon;
my boat seems floating
on the sky.

And thus I dream
my beloved is mirrored
on my heart.

—TU FU, 8TH-CENTURY CHINESE POET,
“ON THE RIVER TCHOU”

Us. You, my bride, your voice speaks
Over the water to me.
Your hands, your solemn arms,
Cross the water and hold me.
Your body is beautiful.
It speaks across the water.
Bride, sweeter than honey, glad
Of heart, our hearts beat across
The bridge of our arms. Our speech
Is speech of the joy in the night
Of gladness. Our words live.
Our words are children dancing
Forth from us like stars on water.
My bride, my well beloved,
Sweeter than honey, than ripe fruit
Solemn, grave, a flying bird,
Hold me. Be quiet and kind.
I love you. Be good to me.
I am strong for you. I uphold
You. The dawn of ten thousand
Dawns is a fire in the sky.
The water flows in the earth.
The children laugh in the air.

—KENNETH REXROTH, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
POET, “THE OLD SONG AND DANCE”

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight,
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make you a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
19TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH NOVELIST

 

 

If I could write the beauty of her eyes, I was born to look in them and know myself.

—WILL SHAKESPEARE (JOSEPH FIENNES)
TO LADY VIOLET (GWYNETH PALTROW),
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

Faith

O Lord Fire, First Created Being! Be thou the over-lord and give food and drink to this household. O Lord Fire, who reigns in richness and vitality over all the worlds, come take your proper seat in this home! Accept the offerings made here, protect the one who makes them, be our protector on this day, O you who see into the hearts of all created beings!

—HINDU WEDDING PRAYER

 

 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations.

—ISAIAH 61:10–11, HOLY BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

To love another person is to help them love God.

—SÖREN KIERKEGAARD,
19TH-CENTURY DANISH PHILOSOPHER

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
flows into a pure soul the way that light
rushes into a transparent object.
The more love that it finds, the more it gives
itself, so that, as we grow clear and open,
the more complete the joy of living is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
the greater the intensity of their love,
for, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.

—DANTE, 14TH-CENTURY ITALIAN POET,
“THE LOVE OF GOD”

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

—MATTHEW 19:4–6, HOLY BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

SOCRATES: [Love] is a great spirit intermediate between the divine and the mortal.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

 

 

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 perfectly whole heart, cause me to love thee more than her and most of all. Amen. Amen.

—TEMPLE GAIRDNER,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH MISSIONARY

Family and Home

You know what they say, “My son’s my son until he gets him a wife but my daughter’s my daughter all of her life.”

—STANLEY (SPENCER TRACY),
FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950)

 

 

It’s about carving your own future. No one is trying to fill my mother’s shoes. What she did was fantastic. It’s about making your own future and your own destiny.

—PRINCE WILLIAM, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE, ON HIS
MARRIAGE TO KATE MIDDLETON

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, CONTEMPORARY WRITER,
LODGED IN THE HEART AND MEMORY

 

 

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another, the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden.

—BUDDHA

 

 

That’s my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that’s where my home is.

—DUKE (JAMES GARNER), THE NOTEBOOK,
BASED ON THE NICHOLAS SPARKS NOVEL

Fate

I was born to be married.

—JANE RUSSELL,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN ACTRESS

 

 

A good marriage is at least eighty percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The rest is trust.

—NANETTE NEWMAN,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH ACTRESS

 

 

It was a novelty store, and I went in just for the novelty of it. She was in front of the counter, listening to the old proprietor say: “I have here one of those illusion paintings, a rare one, where you either see a beautiful couple making love, or a skull. They say this one was used by Freud on his patients—if at first sight you see the couple, then you’re a lover of life and love. But if you focus on the skull first, then you’re closely involved with death, and there’s not much hope for you.”

With that, he unwrapped the painting. She and I hesitated, then looked at the picture, then at each other. We both saw the skull. And have been together ever since.

—ALAN ZIEGLER, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN POET, “LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT”

 

 

It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together . . . and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home . . . the only real home I’d ever known. I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car. It was like . . . magic.

—SAM (TOM HANKS),
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

Oh,
I am thinking
Oh,
I am thinking
I have found
My lover,
Oh,
I think it is so.

—CHIPPEWA SONG

O love,
where are you
leading
me now?

—ROBERT CREELEY, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN POET, “KORE”

 

 

All those broken relationships. All those men. It must have hurt going through so many guys and never finding the right one. And all the while the man of your dreams was right in front of you.

—KIMMY (CAMERON DIAZ) TO JULIA
(JULIA ROBERTS), MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING

 

 

You are the only being whom I can love absolutely with my complete self, with all my flesh and mind and heart. You are my mate, my perfect partner, and I am yours . . . It is some kind of divine luck that we are together now. We must never, never part again. We are, here in this, necessary beings, like gods. As we look at each other, we verify, we know the perfection of our love, we recognize each other. Here is my life, here if need be is my death.

—IRIS MURDOCH, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST,
THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD

 

 

Nothing happens without a cause. The union of this man and woman has not come about accidentally but is the foreordained result of many past lives. This tie can therefore not be broken or dissolved.

—BUDDHIST MARRIAGE HOMILY

The moment I heard my first love story I began seeking you,

Not realizing the search was useless.
Lovers don’t meet somewhere along the way.
They’re in one another’s souls from the beginning.

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ, 13TH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET,
TRANSLATION BY A. J. ARBERRY

 

 

People do belong to each other. Because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.

—PAUL (GEORGE PEPPARD) TO HOLLY GOLIGHTLY
(AUDREY HEPBURN), BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

 

 

I’ve kissed guys. I just haven’t felt that thing . . . That thing . . . that moment when you kiss someone and everything around you becomes hazy, and the only thing in focus is you and this person. And you realize that that person is the only person you’re supposed to kiss for the rest of your life. And for one moment you get this amazing gift. And you wanna laugh and you wanna cry, ’cause you feel so lucky that you’ve found it, and so scared that it’ll go away all at the same time.

—JOSIE (DREW BARRYMORE),
NEVER BEEN KISSED

Oh, hasten not this loving act,
Rapture where self and not-self meet:
My life has been the awaiting you,
Your footfall was my own heart’s beat.

—PAUL VALÉRY, 20TH-CENTURY FRENCH POET
AND PHILOSOPHER

 

 

The apparently uneventful and stark moment at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that other noisy and fortuitous point of time at which it happens to us as if from outside . . . We have . . . to realize that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE,
20TH-CENTURY GERMAN POET,
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

 

 

DIANE: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?

LLOYD: No. You just described every great success story.

—DIANE (LONE SKYE) AND LLOYD
(JOHN CUSACK), SAY ANYTHING

Follow Your Heart, Not Your Head

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

—BLAISE PASCAL, 17TH-CENTURY FRENCH
PHILOSOPHER, PENSÉES,
TRANSLATED BY A. J. KRAILSHEIMER

 

 

It wasn’t logic; it was love.

—CARRIE BRADSHAW (SARAH JESSICA PARKER),
SEX AND THE CITY

 

 

True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSOPHER,
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

We should marry to please ourselves, not other people.

—ISAAC BICKERSTAFFE,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH DRAMATIST

 

 

JEFF: There’s an intelligent way to approach marriage.

STELLA: Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.

—JEFF (JAMES STEWART) AND
STELLA (THELMA RITTER), REAR WINDOW

 

 

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye . . .

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY,
20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER, THE LITTLE PRINCE,
TRANSLATED BY KATHERINE WOODS

 

 

The heart? Ask it. Nothing is surer.

—GEORGE MEREDITH,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER, BEAUCHAMP’S CAREER

 

 

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

Anything may take place at any time, for love does not care for time or order.

—THE KAMA SUTRA OF VATSYAYANA,
THE HINDU TREATISE ON LOVE

Happiness, Joy and Laughter

I married my wife because she makes me laugh. You should never marry someone who doesn’t make you laugh.

—GARRISON KEILLOR,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
HUMORIST AND RADIO HOST

 

 

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

—NICOLE KRAUSS, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN AUTHOR,
THE HISTORY OF LOVE

Live in joy, In love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy, In health,
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, In peace,
Even among the troubled.

—BUDDHA

If I were a tree or a plant
I would feel the soft influence of spring.
Since I am a man . . .
Do not be astonished at my joy.

—“SPRING,” CHINESE LOVE LYRICS,
TRANSLATED BY GERTRUDE L. JOERISSEN

The highest happiness on earth is marriage.

—WILLIAM LYON PHELPS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER,
CRITIC AND EDUCATOR

 

 

There is no earthly happiness exceeding that of a reciprocal satisfaction in the conjugal state.

—HENRY GILES,
19TH-CENTURY IRISH MINISTER AND WRITER

 

 

Despite all the protestations of men to the contrary, married life makes them happy.

—JESSIE BERNARD,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN AUTHOR AND
SOCIOLOGIST

 

 

My marriage was much the most fortunate and joyous event which happened to me in my whole life.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

 

 

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and the state in which you will find solid happiness.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

 

 

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

—GEORGE ELIOT, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH NOVELIST

Remember this . . . that very little is needed to make a happy life.

—MARCUS AURELIUS,
ANCIENT ROMAN EMPEROR AND PHILOSOPHER

 

 

A happy marriage is a new beginning of life, a new starting point for happiness and usefulness.

—A. P. STANLEY, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH THEOLOGIAN

 

 

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction of being loved for yourself, or, more correctly being loved in spite of yourself.

—VICTOR HUGO, 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss.

—JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER,
PARADISE LOST, BOOK IV

 

 

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.

—GEORGE SANTAYANA, 20TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER

I am most
immoderately married:
The Lord God has taken
my heaviness away,
I have merged, like the bird,
with the bright air,
And my thought flies
to the place by the bo-tree.
Being, not doing,
is my first joy.

—THEODORE ROETHKE,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET, “THE ABYSS”

 

 

One year of Joy, another of Comfort, and all the rest of content, make the married Life happy.

—THOMAS FULLER, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH AUTHOR

 

 

Already the second day since our marriage, his love and gentleness is beyond everything, and to kiss that dear soft cheek, to press my lips to his, is heavenly bliss. I feel a purer more unearthly feel than I ever did. Oh! was ever a woman so blessed as I am.

—QUEEN VICTORIA OF GREAT BRITAIN,
JOURNAL ENTRY DATED FEBRUARY 1840

 

 

Married love is love woven into a pattern of living. It has in it the elements of understanding and of the passionate kindness of husband and wife toward each other. It is rich in the many-sided joys of life because each is more concerned with giving joy than with grasping it for himself. And joys are most truly experienced when they are most fully shared.

—LELAND FOSTER WOOD, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
AUTHOR, HOW LOVE GROWS IN MARRIAGE

 

 

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. Love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, a joy that is free from all sorrow.

—BARUCH SPINOZA,
17TH-CENTURY DUTCH PHILOSOPHER

’Tis the gift to be simple
’Tis the gift to be free
’Tis the gift to come down
Where we ought to be

And when we find ourselves
In the place just right
It will be in the valley
Of love and delight.

—“SIMPLE GIFTS,”
A SHAKER HYMN

Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out of the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! How it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

—EDGAR ALLAN POE,
“THE BELLS”

Serene will be our days and bright
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH POET, “ODE TO DUTY”

 

 

When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels desert heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy.

—BRAHMA SUTRA, AN AUTHORITATIVE HINDU TEXT

 

 

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

—AGNES REPPLIER,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN ESSAYIST

 

 

That is the best—to laugh with someone because you think the same things are funny.

—GLORIA VANDERBILT, AMERICAN FASHION DESIGNER

 

 

The man and the woman who can laugh at their love, who can kiss with smiles and embrace with chuckles, will outlast in mutual affection all the throat-lumpy, cow-eyed couples of their acquaintance. Nothing lives on so fresh and evergreen as the love with a funny bone.

—GEORGE JEAN NATHAN, AMERICAN EDITOR
AND DRAMA CRITIC

Intimacy

I want to know
what makes you
tick.

I want to know
what makes you
fickle; I want to know
what makes you
stick.

Tell me.

which ion propels you
which soothsayer spells you
which folksinger trills you
which hardwood distills you
which downward dog twists you
which protest resists you
which neural net fires you
which siren desires you

which villanelle sings you
which jailbreaker springs you
which Uncle Sam wants you
which calculus daunts you
which lullaby lulls you
which confidence gulls you
which apple you’ll bite from
which hither you’ll welcome
what
makes
me

forget the right answers
consult necromancers
allow the forbidden
ignore the guilt ridden
unlearn all the learning
embrace this new burning

to know
what
makes you
tick.

—LARISSA SHMAILO,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET,
“PERSONAL,” A CURE FOR SUICIDE

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
20TH-CENTURY IRISH POET,
“HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN”

 

 

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.

—ELIZABETH GILBERT, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN WRITER, COMMITTED

Love

So what is love? If thou wouldst know
The human heart alone can tell:
Two minds with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.

And whence comes Love? Like morning bright
Love comes without thy call.
And how dies Love? A spirit bright,
Love never dies at all.

—MARIA LOVELL,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER,
“SO WHAT IS LOVE?”

 

 

I heard once that love is friendship on fire. That’s how I feel about you.

—ADAM FORREST (BEN FELDMAN),
THE PERFECT MAN

 

 

There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

—AUDREY NIFFENEGGER, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
AUTHOR AND ARTIST, THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE

 

 

Love will have its day.

—BONO, LEAD VOCALIST OF U2

Love is the hastening gravitation of spirit towards spirit, and body towards body, in the joy of creation.

—D. H. LAWRENCE,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER, “LOVE”

 

 

There is a time for work, and a time for love. That leaves no other time.

—COCO CHANEL,
FRENCH FASHION DESIGNER

 

 

Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

—MICHAEL LEUNIG,
CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN CARTOONIST

 

 

Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.

—JUDITH VIORST,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER

Have you heard? The word is “love.”
It’s so fine, it’s sunshine.

—THE BEATLES, “THE WORD,” RUBBER SOUL

 

 

No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.

—ROBERT BURTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR AND CLERGYMAN

One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and songs about how pleasant it is, it really is quite pleasant.

—LEMONY SNICKET (WRITER DANIEL HANDLER),
HORSERADISH

 

 

Love: a dangerous disease instantly cured by marriage.

—DETECTIVE LENNIE BRISCOE (JERRY ORBACH),
LAW & ORDER

What is the beginning? Love.
What the course, Love still.
What the goal. The goal is Love.
On a happy hill
Is there nothing then but Love?
Search we sky or earth
There is nothing out of Love
Hath perpetual worth:
All things flag but only Love,
All things fail and flee,
There is nothing left but Love
Worth you and me.

—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
“WHAT IS THE BEGINNING?”

 

 

It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge—they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion . . . love actually is all around.

—PRIME MINISTER (HUGH GRANT), LOVE ACTUALLY

 

 

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as “love.” “Love” is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess . . . To say “I have a great love for you” is not a thing that one can have, but a process, an inner activity that one is the subject of. I can love, I can be in love, but in love I have nothing. In fact, the less I have the more I can love.

—ERICH FROMM, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
PSYCHOANALYST, TO HAVE OR TO BE

A coward is incapable
of exhibiting love;
it is the prerogative
of the brave.

—MOHANDAS GANDHI, 20TH-CENTURY
INDIAN POLITICAL LEADER

 

 

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD,
17TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER,
MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

 

 

To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.

—BARON GOTTFRIED VON LEIBNITZ,
16TH-/17TH-CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

To love is to
admire with the heart;
to admire is to
love with the mind.

—THÉOPHILE GAUTIER,
19TH-CENTURY FRENCH AUTHOR

 

 

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

—WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART,
18TH-CENTURY AUSTRIAN COMPOSER

 

 

When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world—no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.

—SÖREN KIERKEGAARD,
19TH-CENTURY DANISH PHILOSOPHER

 

 

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

—JOSH BILLINGS,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN HUMORIST

 

 

You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover’s arms can only come later when you’re sure they won’t laugh if you trip.

—JONATHAN CARROLL,
AMERICAN NOVELIST,
OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

—VICTOR HUGO, 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

—MARIANNE WILLIAMSON,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

—ANDRÉ MAUROIS, 20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

—G. K. CHESTERTON,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

 

 

Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.

—JOAN CRAWFORD, AMERICAN ACTRESS

From all the offspring
of the earth and heaven
love is the most precious.

—SAPPHO, ANCIENT GREEK POET

 

 

It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, 17TH-CENTURY
FRENCH WRITER, MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

—MME. DE STAËL, 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN,
20TH-CENTURY NOBEL PRIZE–WINNING
GERMAN PHYSICIST

 

 

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.

—SIGMUND FREUD, FATHER OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

 

 

We love because it’s the only true adventure.

—NIKKI GIOVANNI,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET AND ESSAYIST

 

 

If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.

—LYNDA BARRY, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
CARTOONIST AND WRITER

 

 

Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.

—WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN,
20TH-CENTURY MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER

 

 

Love one human being purely and warmly, and you will love all . . . The heart in this heaven, like the sun in its course, sees nothing, from the dewdrop to the ocean, but a mirror which it brightens, and arms, and fills.

—CONRAD RICHTER,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELIST

It is the true season
of Love
when we know that
we alone can love;
that no one could ever
have loved before us
and that no one
will ever Love
in the same way
after us.

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN WRITER

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.,
AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER

 

 

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.

—LAO TZU,
ANCIENT CHINESE PHILOSOPHER

 

 

The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.

—TOM ROBBINS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

Love gives us in a moment
what we can hardly attain
by effort after years of toil.

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN WRITER

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

 

 

ARISTOPHANES: Love is the oldest of the gods, and he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us . . .

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

 

 

AGATHON: [Love is] the youngest of the gods and youthful ever.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

There is only
one terminal dignity—
love.
And the story of a love
is not important
what is important
is that one is capable of love.
It is perhaps the only glimpse
we are permitted of eternity.

—HELEN HAYES, AMERICAN ACTRESS

 

 

We can do not great things—only small things with great love.

—MOTHER TERESA, CATHOLIC MISSIONARY

Love. What small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? . . . Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days . . .

The heart is a loving museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of living and being loved.

—DIANE ACKERMAN, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN WRITER,
A NATURAL HISTORY OF LOVE

 

 

Love is a taste of paradise.

—SHOLEM ALEICHEM,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY YIDDISH AUTHOR

 

 

If you would be loved, love and be lovable.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

 

 

Infatuation is when you think that he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conners, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford—but you’ll take him anyway.

—JUDITH VIORST,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AUTHOR

Love—is anterior to Life—
Posterior—to Death—
Initial of creation, and
The Exponent of Earth.

—EMILY DICKINSON,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
THE COMPLETE POEMS

 

 

We are all born for love; it is the principle of existence and its only end.

—BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR AND PRIME MINISTER

Love, then hath every bliss in store;
’Tis friendship and ’tis something more.
Each other every wish they give;
Not to know love is not to live.

—JOHN GAY, 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND DRAMATIST

 

 

Who then can doubt that we exist only to love? Disguise it, in fact, as we will, we love without intermission. Where we seem most effectually to shut out love, it lies covert and concealed; we live not a moment exempt from its influence.

—BLAISE PASCAL,
17TH-CENTURY FRENCH PHILOSOPHER,
“ON THE PASSION OF THE SOUL”

 

 

ARISTOPHANES: I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy . . . [Therefore] we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us, and make us happy and blessed.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

The memories of long love
Gather like drifting snow,
Poignant as the mandarin ducks,
Who float side by side in sleep.

Falling from the ridge
Of high Tsukuba
The Minano River
At last gathers itself,
Like my love, into
A deep, still pool.

—KENNETH REXROTH, 20TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN POET, ONE HUNDRED
POEMS FROM THE JAPANESE

 

 

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE, 20TH-CENTURY
GERMAN POET, LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

 

 

There is no remedy for love than to love more.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

Love is blynd.

—GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 14TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR, THE CANTERBURY TALES

That love is all there is
Is all we know of love.

—EMILY DICKINSON,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
THE COMPLETE POEMS

The only present love demands is love.

—JOHN GAY,
18TH-CENTURY ENGLISH POET AND DRAMATIST

 

 

AGATHON: [Love] walks . . . in the hearts and souls of both gods and men, which are of all things the softest: in them he walks and dwells and makes his home. Not in every soul without exception, for where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he dwells . . . he dwells in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides . . .

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

 

 

Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

—FRANKLIN P. JONES,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN HUMORIST

 

 

A man is not where he lives, but where he loves.

—LATIN PROVERB

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgement;

That ye may approve things that are excellent.

—PHILIPPIANS 1:9–10, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

He who loves is a slave; he who is loved is a master.

—POLISH PROVERB

 

 

It is difficult to define love. But we may say that in the soul, it is a ruling passion; in the mind, it is a close sympathy and affinity; in the body, a wholly secret and delicate longing to possess what we love—and this after much mystery.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD,
17TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER,
MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

 

 

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

love,
the breaking
of your
soul
upon
my lips

—E. E. CUMMINGS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“AMORES”

Together we stood without words
And love, like the heavy fragrance
Of the flowering thorn tree, pierced us

—GABRIELLA MISTRAL,
20TH-CENTURY CHILEAN POET,
“GOD WILLS IT”

 

 

SOCRATES: Human nature will not easily find a helper better than love. And therefore I say that every man ought to honor him, and walk in his ways and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power and spirit of love . . . now and forever.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK
PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

 

 

Not knowing what love is. It was in this condition that many girls would marry once upon a time where we came from, they would live their whole lives without knowing this sensation of the soul, confusing it with respect, resignation, duty, habit. In the end they would die without ever having felt its existence . . . the sudden discovery of this sensation could be so shattering, that it was destined to disrupt all things.

—TRANSLATION OF OPENING LINES OF THE ITALIAN
MOVIE THE BEST MAN

Marriage Itself

Marriage is a sea of dreams.

—FRANK CRANE, CONTEMPORARY WRITER

Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces; marriage is also three meals a day, sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash.

—DR. JOYCE BROTHERS, AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
AND COLUMNIST, IN GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

 

 

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.”

—BEVERLY CLARK (SUSAN SARANDON),
SHALL WE DANCE?

 

 

Still, I am prepared for this voyage, and for anything else you may care to mention.

—JOHN ASHBERRY,
AMERICAN POET, THE SKATERS

 

 

Marriage has less beauty but more safety than the single life. It’s full of sorrows and full of joys. It lives under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strength of love, and those burdens are delightful.

—CLOSING NARRATION FROM THE MOVIE
FORCES OF NATURE

 

 

The aim of marriage should be to give the best years of your life to the spouse who makes them the best.

—ANONYMOUS

The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the world. We marry to assist each other in this task.

—LEO TOLSTOY, 19TH-CENTURY
RUSSIAN NOVELIST

 

 

Any marriage which is turned in upon itself, in which the bride and groom simply gaze obsessively at one another, goes out after a time.

A marriage which really works is one which works for others. Marriage has both a private face and a public importance. If we solved all our economic problems and failed to build loving families, it would profit us, nothing, because the family is the place where the future is created good and full of love—or deformed.

Those who are married live happily ever after the wedding day if they persevere in the real adventure, which is the royal task of creating each other and creating a more loving world.

—ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,
ON THE MARRIAGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II

 

 

A marriage is like a salad: the man has to know how to keep his tomatoes on the top.

—J. R. EWING (LARRY HAGMAN), DALLAS

 

 

Marriage is that relationship between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.

—L. K. ANSPACHER,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN DRAMATIST

The married man may bear his yoke with ease,
Secure at once himself and Heav’n to please;
And pass his inoffensive hours away,
In bliss all night, and innocence all day;
Tho’ fortune change, his constant spouse remains,
Augments his joys, or mitigates his pains.

—ALEXANDER POPE, 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
Life’s paradise, great princess, the soul’s quiet,
Sinews of concord, earthy immortality,
Eternity of pleasures.

—JOHN FORD,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH DRAMATIST

 

 

You must marry, or your life will be wasted . . . You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you . . . When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love—Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the world was made . . .

—E. M. FORSTER, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH
NOVELIST, A ROOM WITH A VIEW

 

 

Marriage is the only known example of the happy meeting of the immovable object and the irresistible force.

—OGDEN NASH, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

 

 

Marriages are made in heaven, but they are lived on earth.

—NATHAN H. GIST

 

 

We bachelors laugh and show our teeth, but you married men laugh till your hearts ache.

—GEORGE HERBERT, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights and the promise of marriage above the sanctity, the rights and the promise of love. It is not your love that sustains marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

—DIETRICH BONHOEFFER,
20TH-CENTURY GERMAN PROTESTANT THEOLOGIAN,
LETTERS AND PAPERS FROM PRISON

Loose though it be,
The joint is free;
So, when love’s yoke is on,
It must not gall,
Nor fret at all,
With hard oppression.

—ROBERT HERRICK,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET, “TO JULIA”

 

 

A married man forms married habits and becomes dependent on marriage just as a sailor becomes dependent on the sea.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, IRISH PLAYWRIGHT

Not caged, my bird, my shy, sweet bird,
But nested—nested!

—HABBERTON LULHAM,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

 

 

All I know for sure from seven years of marriage so far . . . is this: a good marriage is worth more than rubies, flowers, flattery and French perfume; a true, loving husband or wife is a passionate gift from life. A bad marriage is hell on earth and more predatory and dangerous to a person’s body and soul than the thing from Alien.

—ANNA MARIA DELL’OSO,
CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN
FEMINIST WRITER

We;—
They;—
Small words, but mighty.
In their span
Are bound the life and hopes of man.
For them, life’s best is centered round their love;
Till younger lives come all their love to prove.

—JOHN OXENHAM,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
“THE LITTLE POEM OF LIFE”

 

 

Marriage is a mistake every man should make.

—GEORGE JESSEL,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN COMEDIAN

 

 

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.

—GLORIA STEINEM,
AMERICAN FEMINIST

 

 

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s not hip to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.

—JOHN LENNON OF THE BEATLES

Of course I want to get married again. Who doesn’t? It’s the biggest thing you can do in life.

—SHOTZIE (LAUREN BECALL),
HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

 

 

The only thing that can hallow marriage is love, and the only genuine marriage is that which is hallowed by love.

—LEO TOLSTOY, 19TH-CENTURY RUSSIAN NOVELIST

 

 

Any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate.

—W. H. AUDEN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
it throbs in the teeth . . .

We look for communion
and are turned away, beloved,
each and each

It is leviathan and we
in its belly
looking for joy, some joy
not be known outside it

two by two in the ark of
the ache of it.

—DENISE LEVERTOV,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“THE ACHE OF MARRIAGE”

Marriage is a sweet state,
I can affirm it by my own experience,
In a very truth, I who have a good and wise husband
Whom God helped me to find.
I give thanks to him who will save him for me,
For I can truly feel his great goodness
And for sure the sweet man loves me well.

Throughout that first night in our home,
I could well feel his great goodness,
For he did me no excess
That could hurt me.
But before it was time to get up,
He kissed me 100 times, this I affirm,
Without exacting further outrage,
And yet for sure sweet man loves me well.

—CHRISTINE DE PISAN, 15TH-CENTURY FRENCH POET,
“IN PRAISE OF MARRIAGE”

 

 

It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to produce the occasional bon mot.

—HONORÉ DE BALZAC, 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH
NOVELIST, PHYSIOLOGIE DU MARIAGE

 

 

The first bond of society is marriage.

—CICERO, ANCIENT ROMAN STATESMAN

 

 

[M]arriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.

—“THE CELEBRATION AND BLESSING OF A MARRIAGE,”
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

When I look back now I can’t understand what women like Liz Taylor have been doing all these years. I have feelings of immense relief that I got it all over and done with in such a short space of time. Imagine dedicating your entire life to the pursuit of marriage. No wonder Liz has battled booze, drugs, diets, surgery and pills for so long—she has been driven to them.

—JAN OWEN, CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN AUTHOR

 

 

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times always with the same person.

—MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

—AMBROSE BIERCE,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER,
THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY

 

 

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

—G. K. CHESTERTON,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

 

 

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN WRITER

 

 

Thank heaven. A bachelor’s life is no life for a single man.

—SAMUEL GOLDWYN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN MOVIE PRODUCER

Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution yet.

—MAE WEST,
AMERICAN ACTRESS

 

 

Love and marriage are two goals approached by different and distinct paths . . . Marriage has utility, justice, honor and constancy for its share . . . Love builds itself wholly upon pleasure . . . Marriage is a solemn and religious tie; and therefore the pleasure we take from it should be restrained, serious and seasoned with a certain gravity . . . That few are observed to be happy is a token of its value and price. If well-formed and rightly taken, there is not a finer estate in human society. Though we cannot live without it, yet we do nothing but decry it. We see the same with bird-cages: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out.

—MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE,
16TH-CENTURY FRENCH ESSAYIST,
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Partnership, Friendship and Companionship

You’re my best friend. Marry me.

—JOHHNY CASH (JOAQUIN PHOENIX)
TO JUNE CARTER (REESE WITHERSPOON),
WALK THE LINE

 

 

A love which depends solely on romance, on the combustion of two attracting chemistries, tends to fizzle out . . . A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.

—MADELEINE L’ENGLE,
AMERICAN WRITER, TWO-PART INVENTION

 

 

And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free.

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
19TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH NOVELIST,
A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES

Marriage is a partnership
in which each inspires the other,
and brings fruition to both.

—MILLICENT CAREY MCINTOSH, 20TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN EDUCATOR AND FEMINIST

 

 

To love means to decide independently to live with an equal partner, and to subordinate oneself to the formation of a new subject, a “we.”

—FRITZ KUNKEL,
20TH-CENTURY GERMAN THEOLOGIAN

 

 

The one word above all others that makes marriage successful is “ours.”

—ROBERT QUILLEN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN JOURNALIST

There is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning.

—HERMAN MELVILLE,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELIST

 

 

Marriage must exemplify friendship’s highest ideal . . .

—MARGARET E. SANGER,
AMERICAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVIST

 

 

Love may be the spark that started the flame, but friendship is the timber that keeps it burning.

—TONY JONES (BRAD MAULE) TO
BOBBIE SPENCER (JACKLYN ZEMAN),
GENERAL HOSPITAL

 

 

A good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

 

 

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

—MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE,
16TH-CENTURY FRENCH ESSAYIST,
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Only choose in marriage
A woman
whom you would choose
As a friend
if she were a man.

—JOSEPH JOUBERT,
19TH-CENTURY
FRENCH ESSAYIST

 

 

I can’t think of a better way to get through this life than with your best friend. It’s a place where those loving feelings that we have can be nurtured. And can flower and bloom. You see, when friends become lovers and then husbands and wives, well, two is definitely better than one, to themselves and to everyone they touch.

—LEE BALDWIN (PETER HANSEN)
TO SCOTT BALDWIN (KIN SHRINER),
GENERAL HOSPITAL

She who dwells with me, who I have loved
With such communion, that no place on earth
Can ever be a solitude for me.

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

 

 

The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moments people look back on at the end of life and number as their most sacred experiences.

—EUGENE KENNEDY,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
AND COLUMNIST

The secret of a happy marriage is simple: Just keep on being as polite to one another as you are to your best friends.

—ROBERT QUILLEN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN JOURNALIST

 

 

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET AND
ESSAYIST, “FRIENDSHIP”

Thus hand in hand through life—we’ll go;
Its checkered paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we’ll tread.

—NATHANIEL COTTON,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
EARLY THOUGHTS OF MARRIAGE

 

 

Take my hand. There are two of us in this cave.

—LISEL MUELLER, CONTEMPORARY POET,
“THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND”

 

 

There is nothing better in this world than that man and woman, sharing the same ideas, keep house together. It discomforts their enemies and makes the hearts of their friends glad—but they themselves know more about it than anyone.

—HOMER, ANCIENT GREEK POET, THE ODYSSEY

Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life.

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
19TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH NOVELIST

“Dear beast, you shall not die,” said Beauty. “You will live in order to become my husband. From this moment on I give you my hand and I swear that I shall be yours alone. Alas! I thought that I felt only friendship for you, but the sorrow that I feel now makes me see that I cannot live without you.”

—MADAME LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT,
18TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

 

 

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through union in the same high effort.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY,
20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Marriage is to think together.

—ROBERT C. DODDS, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
PSYCHOLOGIST, TWO TOGETHER

 

 

Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality—not as we expect it to be but as it is—is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.

—FREDERICK BUECHNER,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITER AND PREACHER,
THE MAGNIFICENT DEFEAT

 

 

You jump, I jump, remember? I can’t turn away without knowing you’ll be all right.

—JACK (LEONARDO DICAPRIO) TO ROSE
(KATE WINSLET), TITANIC

When two people love each other, they don’t look at each other, they look in the same direction.

—GINGER ROGERS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN ACTRESS AND DANCER

 

 

SOCRATES: Love begins with the desire of union.

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER, SYMPOSIUM

 

 

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

—SYDNEY SMITH, 19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH
WRITER AND CLERGYMAN

 

 

Whoever says marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition doesn’t know the half of it.

—ANONYMOUS

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

—MICHAEL BLUMENTHAL,
AMERICAN POET AND ESSAYIST,
“A MARRIAGE”

When to the session of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances oregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not aid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, SONNET XXX

I believe there is . . . an opportunity for the best relationship of all: not a limited, mutually exclusive one . . . and not a functional, dependent one . . . but the meeting of two whole, fully developed people as persons . . .

—ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH,
AMERICAN WRITER AND WIFE OF AVIATOR
CHARLES LINDBERGH, GIFT FROM THE SEA

 

 

Marriage is a matter of give and take, but so far I haven’t been able to find anybody who’ll take what I have to give.

—CASS DALEY,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN ACTRESS AND COMEDIAN

The light of love
Shines over all,
Of love, that says
Not mine and thine,
But ours, for ours
Is thine and mine.

—HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

 

 

On the way to the airport after the wedding, the bride asked her husband, a bachelor for forty years, if he had their plane tickets. He confidently reached into his pocket . . . and then saw that out of habit, he had bought just one ticket. “Incredible! Just one ticket. You know, dear, I’ve been married only an hour and already I’ve forgotten about myself.”

—ANONYMOUS

 

 

Marriage has too often been portrayed as two people frozen together side by side, as immobile as marble statues. More accurately, it is the intricate and graceful cooperation of two dancers who through long practice have learned to match each other’s movements and moods in response to the music of the spheres.

—DAVID R. MACE,
20TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH SOCIOLOGIST

 

 

The greatest of all the arts is the art of living together . . .

—WILLIAM LYON PHELPS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER,
CRITIC AND EDUCATOR

 

 

This is my beloved and this is my friend . . .

—SONG OF SOLOMON 5:16, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

I’ve often wished to have a friend
With whom my choicest hours to spend,
To whom I safely may impart
Each wish and weakness of my heart.
Who would in every sorrow cheer,
And mingle with my grief a tear,
And to secure that bliss for life,
I’d like that friend to be my wife.

—“THE WISH,” A VERSE FROM A VICTORIAN CARD

 

 

Heart reposes upon heart with perfect confidence, and love unutterable, secure of a return of its warmest feelings. Unite! in the most perfect friendship.

—GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, A VICTORIAN-ERA PUBLICATION

 

 

There are three sights which warm my heart and are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and of men: concord among brothers, friendship among neighbors, and a man and a wife who are inseparable.

—THE WISDOM OF BEN SIR A, CHAPTER 25, VERSE I

If love were what the rose is
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or grey grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.

—ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET, “A MATCH”

Passion

My longing for you—
Too strong to keep within bounds.
At least no one can blame me
When I go to you at night
Along the road of dreams.

—ONO NO KOMACHI, 9TH-CENTURY JAPANESE POET,
“MY LONGING FOR YOU”

 

 

It’s only you, you black-haired youth,
with your dark skin and spacious brow,
your large eyes and ardent look,
with the rubies glowing on your lips,
with your noble shape and haughty head,
your gracious smile and tender voice,
your white teeth and aromatic breath,
it’s only you I love, nobody but you . . .

Only for you have I ever felt
the most tender, delightful emotion,
you’ve filled my soul with anticipation,
you’ve engendered new life inside me.
I saw you once, and at that very moment
a hungry fire began to consume me,
and I heard a voice pronounce an oath:
it’s only you I love, nobody but you.

—DOLORES GUERRERO,
19TH-CENTURY MEXICAN POET,
“IT’S ONLY YOU,” TRANSLATED BY
ENRIQUETA CARRINGTON

 

 

Give me your hands, I’ll cover them with kisses! My butterfly—how very well they named you, Tender fragile creature!—

I have caught you, and so I want to hold you. Be mine now!”

—PINKERTON,
IN MADAME BUTTERFLY BY GIACOMO PUCCINI

 

 

Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty . . . People with no imagination feed it with sex—the clown of love. They don’t know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that—softly, without props.

—TONI MORRISON,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVELIST, LOVE

When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they oughta come together. WHAM! Like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.

—STELLA (THELMA RITTER),
REAR WINDOW

Passionate love relentlessly twists a cord
Under my heart and spreads deep mist on my eyes,
stealing the unguarded brains from my head.

—ARCHILOCHOS,
ANCIENT GREEK POET

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild.

—JOHNNY CASH, AMERICAN
SINGER-SONGWRITER, “RING OF FIRE”

But, to the charms which I adore,
’Tis religion to be true!

—RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN,
18TH-/19TH-CENTURY IRISH DRAMATIST

 

 

The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life’s major mysteries.

—IRIS MURDOCH, 20TH-CENTURY
BRITISH NOVELIST

In melody divine,
My heart it beats to rapturous love,
I long to call you mine.

—FROM A VICTORIAN CARD

God will not give you the light
Unless you walk by my side.
God will not let you drink
If I do not tremble in the water.
He will not let you sleep
Except in the hollow of my hair.

—GABRIELLA MISTRAL, 20TH-CENTURY
CHILEAN POET AND EDUCATOR, “GOD WILLS IT”

 

 

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality . . . The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.

—GEORGE SANTAYANA, 20TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER, REASON IN RELIGION

 

 

Under the influence of strong passion the beloved object seems new in every interview. Absence instantaneously creates a void in the heart. Then, the joys of reunion.

—BLAISE PASCAL, 17TH-CENTURY FRENCH
PHILOSOPHER, ON THE PASSION OF THE SOUL

Our love it was strong by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we—
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride . . .

—EDGAR ALLAN POE,
“ANNABEL LEE”

The passion which unites the sexes . . . is habitually spoken of as though it were a simple feeling; whereas it is the most compound, and therefore the most powerful, of all the feelings.

—HERBERT SPENCER, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH
PHILOSOPHER, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY

 

 

She’s my girl . . . She’s my blue sky. After sixteen years, I still bite her shoulders. She makes me feel like Hannibal crossing the Alps.

—JOHN CHEEVER, AMERICAN WRITER,
“THE COUNTRY HUSBAND”

I know not whether thou has been absent:
I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee,
In my dreams thou are with me.
If my eardrops tremble in my ears,
I know it is thou moving within
my heart.

—AZTEC LOVE SONG

Come, embrace me, never remove
your arms from round my neck,
never hide your lovely face
from me,
don’t run away shyly.
Let our lips meet
In an endless, burning kiss,
Let the hours, slow and sweet,
Flow by just like this.

Doves fall silent
in green tamarind trees;
spikenards have exhausted
their supply of scents.
You’re growing languid;
your eyes close with fatigue,
and your bosom, sweet friend,
is trembling.

On the river bank
everything droops and swoons;
the rosebays on the beach
grow drowsy with the heat.
I’ll offer you repose
on this carpet of clover,
in the perfumed shade
of orange trees in bloom.

—IGNACIO MANUEL ALTAMIRANO,
19TH-CENTURY MEXICAN WRITER, “THE ORANGE
TREES,” TRANSLATED BY ENRIQUETA CARRINGTON

Sex

I’d like to get married, because I like the idea of a man being required by law to sleep with me every night.

—CARRIE SNOW,
CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN COMEDIAN

I was promised sex. Everybody said it. You be a bridesmaid, you get sex. You’ll be fighting them off.

—BRIDESMAID LYDIA
(SOPHIE THOMPSON),
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

The Sun-beams in the East are spred,
Leave, leave faire Bride, your solitary bed,
No more shall you returne to it alone,
It nourseth sadnesse, and your bodies print,
Like to a grave, the yielding downe doth dint;
You and your other you meet the anon;
Put forth, put forth that warme balm-breathing
thigh,
Which when next time you in these sheets will
smother,
There it must meet another . . .
Come glad from thence, goe gladder than you came,
Today put on perfection and a womans name . . .

—JOHN DONNE,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN, “EPITHALAMION MADE
AT LINCOLN’S INN”

Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!

—EMILY DICKINSON, 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
THE COMPLETE POEMS

The canopy is the cover of our bed
where our bodies open their portals wide,
where we eat and drink the blood
of our love, where the skin shines red
as a swallowed sunrise and we burn
in one furnace of joy molten as steel
and the dream is fresh and flower.

—MARGE PIERCY,
AMERICAN WRITER, “THE CHUPPAH”

Who will plow my body?
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?

Who will station the ox there?
Who will plow my body?

Great Lady, the King will plow
your body.
I the King will plow your body.

—AN ANCIENT SUMERIAN SACRED
WEDDING POEM, TRANSLATED BY
DIANE WOLKSTEIN AND SAMUEL NOAH KRAMER

Come now
to your
bedroom to your
bed
and play there
sweetly gently
with your bridegroom . . .

—SAPPHO, ANCIENT GREEK POET

 

 

The best way to hold a man is in your arms.

—MAE WEST,
AMERICAN ACTRESS

 

 

Love is the answer, but while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions.

—WOODY ALLEN,
AMERICAN HUMORIST,
WRITER AND FILMMAKER

 

 

ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

—AMBROSE BIERCE, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
WRITER, THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY

 

 

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly.

—ROSE FRANKEN,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
AUTHOR AND PLAYWRIGHT

 

 

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW,
IRISH PLAYWRIGHT

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children they just about throw up.

—BARBARA BUSH,
WIFE OF 41ST U.S. PRESIDENT, GEORGE H. W. BUSH

 

 

One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: “Give little, give seldom, and above all, give grudgingly.” Otherwise, what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

—RUTH SMYTHERS, MARRIAGE ADVICE FOR WOMEN, 1894

 

 

I hear if you have fertility dolls, you don’t need Viagra.

—JESSE JACKSON JR.,
CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN CONGRESSMAN

The virgin’s girdle now untie,
And in thy nuptiall bed (love’s altar) lye
A pleasing sacrifice; now dispossesse
Thee of these chaines and robes which were put on
T’adorne the day, not thee, for thou, alone,
Like vertue’and truth, art best in nakedness;
This bed is onely to virginite
A grave, but, to a better state, a cradle;
Till now thou wast bout able
To be what now thou art; then that by thee
No more be said, I may bee, but, I am,
To night put on perfection and a womans name . . .

—JOHN DONNE,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN, “EPITHALAMION
MADE AT LINCOLN’S INN”

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:

For thy love is better than wine . . .

—SONG OF SOLOMON, 1:2, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine!

—SONG OF SOLOMON, 4:10, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

How could I, blest with thee, long nights employ.
And how with thee the longest day enjoy!

—TIBULLUS, ANCIENT ROMAN POET

Off with that girdle, like heavens zone glistering,
But a farre fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled brest-plate, which you weare,
That the eyes of busy fooles may be stopt there:
Unlace your selfe, for that harmonious chime
Tells me from you that now ’tis your bed time.

Licence my roving hands, and let them goe
Behind, before, above, between, below.
Oh my America, my new found lande,
My kingdome, safeliest when with one man
mand’d . . .

—JOHN DONNE,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN, “ELEGIE XIX”

 

 

Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.

—SPIKE MILLIGAN,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH COMIC

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

—SAMUEL JOHNSON, 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH
LEXICOGRAPHER, “RASSELAS”

 

 

Marriage may often be a story lake, but celibacy is almost always a muddy horsepond.

—THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH
AUTHOR AND POET

 

 

So “celibacy is the highest state!” And why? Because “it is the safest and easiest road to heaven?” A pretty reason . . . I should have thought that that was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. Noble spirits show their nobleness by daring the most difficult paths. And even if marriage was but one weed-field of temptations, as these miserable pedants say, who have either never tried it, or misused it to their own shame, it would be a greater deed to conquer its temptations than to flee from them in cowardly longings after ease and safety!

—DIALOGUE FROM 19TH-CENTURY NOVEL

The amorous evening starre is rose,
Why then should not our amorous starre inclose
Her selfe in her wishe’d bed? . . . all toyl’d beasts
Rest duly; at night all their toyles are dispensed;
But in their beds commenced
Are other labours, and more dainty feasts;
She goes a maid, who lest she turn the same
To night put on perfection and a womans name.

—JOHN DONNE,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND CLERGYMAN, “EPITHALAMION MADE
AT LINCOLN’S INN”

Every time evening comes, I get thoughtful and say, what’s the good of having a bed, if you don’t sleep with me?

—MEXICAN PROVERB,
TREASURY OF MEXICAN LOVE POEMS, QUOTATIONS AND
PROVERBS, TRANSLATED BY ENRIQUETA CARRINGTON

Soul Mates . . .

This is going to work. We are alike. He is Irish and I’m Hungarian—both nuts.

—ZSA ZSA GABOR, ACTRESS,
ON HER MARRIAGE TO JACK RYAN

 

 

We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.

—ROBERT FULGHUM,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AUTHOR, TRUE LOVE

 

 

He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same . . . If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be, and if all else remained, and he was annihilated, the universe would turn to a might stranger . . . He’s always, always in my mind; not as a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

—EMILY BRONTË,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH AUTHOR,
WUTHERING HEIGHTS

The union of souls will ever be more perfect than of bodies.

—ERASMUS,
16TH-CENTURY DUTCH RELIGIOUS SCHOLAR

 

 

Finding someone you love and who loves you back is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But finding a true soul mate is an even better feeling. A soul mate is someone who understands you like no other, loves you like no other, will be there for you forever, no matter what. They say that nothing lasts forever, but I am a firm believer in the fact that for some, love lives on even after we’re gone.

—CECELIA AHERN, CONTEMPORARY
IRISH NOVELIST, P.S. I LOVE YOU

My heart, I fain would ask thee
What then is Love? Say on.
Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.

—JOSEF VON MUNCH-BELLINGHAUSEN,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN PLAYWRIGHT AND POET

There is no you, no I, no tomorrow,
No yesterday, no names, the truth of two
In a single body, a single soul,
Oh total being . . .

—OCTAVIO PAZ, 20TH-CENTURY
MEXICAN POET, SUNSTONE

 

 

Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.

—GENESIS 2:23, HOLY BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.

—ANNE BRADSTREET, AMERICAN POET,
“A LETTER TO HER HUSBAND,
ABSENT UPON PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT”

 

 

So we grew together, like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet no union in partition; two lovely berries bolded on one stem.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

 

 

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, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH NOVELIST, ADAM BEDE

The Fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Oceans,
The Winds of Heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle,
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another,
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother,
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
“LOVES PHILOSOPHY”

 

 

ARISTOPHANES: Original human nature was not like the present but different. The sexes were not two as they are now but originally three in number; there was a man, woman, and the union of the two . . . The man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth . . . [Now] when one of them meets his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy . . . These are the people who pass their whole lives together . . . The reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love . . .

—PLATO, ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHER,
SYMPOSIUM

 

 

I hereby give myself. I love you. You are the only being whom I can love absolutely with my complete self, with all my flesh and mind and heart. You are my mate, my perfect partner, and I am yours. You must feel this now, as I do . . . It was a marvel that we ever met. It is some kind of divine luck that we are together now. We must never, never part again. We are, here in this, necessary beings, like gods. As we look at each other we verify, we know, the perfection of our love, we recognize each other. Here is my life, here if need be is my death.

—IRIS MURDOCH, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST,
THE BOOK AND THE BROTHERHOOD

 

 

I am the sky. You are the earth. We are the earth and sky, united.

—BENEDICTION RECITED BY A HINDU GROOM

 

 

Do not live without me. Let us share the joys. We are word and meaning, united. You are thought and I am sound.

—HINDU MARRIAGE RITUAL, “SEVEN STEPS”

 

 

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

—KHALIL GIBRAN, 19TH-/20TH-CENTURY
LEBANESE POET AND WRITER

But happy they, the happiest of their kind,
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate,
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.

—JAMES THOMSON,
18TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH POET

 

 

God has set the type of marriage everywhere throughout creation . . . Every creature seeks its perfection in another . . . The very heavens and earth picture it to us.

—JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, KING JOHN

 

 

Sweet be the glances we exchange, our faces showing true concord. Enshrine me in thy heart, and let a single spirit dwell within us.

—FROM THE ATHARVAVEDA,
SANSKRIT VERSE, 1500–1200 BCE

Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

—JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

Then blend they, like green leaves with golden
flowers,
Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
For one lone soul, another lonely soul.
Each choosing each through all the weary hours,
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal,
into one beautiful perfect whole;
And life’s long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.

—EDWIN ARNOLD,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

 

 

From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.

—BAAL SHEM TOV, 18TH-CENTURY JEWISH MYSTIC

You and I
Have so much love
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me,
Then we take both of them,
And mix the pieces with water,
and break them into pieces,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
In life we share a single quilt.
In death we will share one bed.

—KUAN TAO-SHENG, 13TH-/14TH-CENTURY CHINESE
POET AND PAINTER

Two happy lovers make one single bread . . .

—PABLO NERUDA,
20TH-CENTURY CHILEAN POET,
SONNET XLVIII

Two such as you, with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

—ROBERT FROST,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“THE MASTER SPEED”

My true love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given;
I hold this dear and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven:
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

My heart in me keeps him and me in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 16TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET
AND STATESMAN, “MY TRUE LOVE HATH MY HEART”

Let them into one another sink
so as to endure each other outright.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE, 20TH-CENTURY GERMAN
POET, “THE LOVERS”

Best image of myself and dearer half.

—JOHN MILTON, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER,
PARADISE LOST, BOOK V

You are the sea, I am a fish . . .

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ, 13TH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET

As wing to bird,
water to fish
life to the living—
so you to me.

—“VIDYPATI,” HINDU LOVE POEM, TRANSLATED BY
EDWARD C. DIMOCK AND DENISE LEVERTOV

Marriage is the fusion
Of two hearts
the union of two lives—
the coming together of two tributaries.

—PETER MARSHALL, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
AUTHOR AND THEOLOGICAL HISTORIAN

If ever were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That we when live no more, we may live ever.

—ANNE BRADSTREET,
17TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“TO MY DEAR AND LOVING HUSBAND”

 

 

Man cannot find his satisfactions within himself only; and, as love is essential to him, he must seek the objects of his affection in external objects . . . Such is the largeness of his heart, that it must be something resembling himself, and approximating to his own qualities. That kind of beauty, therefore, which satisfies man, must not only contribute to his enjoyment but partake of his own resemblance.

—BLAISE PASCAL, 17TH-CENTURY FRENCH
MATHEMATICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER,
ON THE PASSION OF THE SOUL

If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods,
Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless
Against them while they stand so.

—MAXWELL ANDERSON,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
DRAMATIST AND PHILOSOPHER

 

 

Marriage: that I call the will of two to create the one who is more than those who created it.

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE,
19TH-CENTURY GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

 

 

When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.

—I CHING, CLASSIC CHINESE BOOK OF DIVINATION
AND FORTUNE-TELLING

 

 

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

Again, if the two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

—ECCLESIASTES 4:9–11, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

Where they create dreams,
There were not enough for both of us,
So we saw the same one . . .

—ANNA AKHMATOVA, 19TH-/20TH-CENTURY POET,
“INSTEAD OF AN AFTERWORD”

It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being. Together they are most likely to succeed in the world.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

I can’t do everything myself,

Mysterious is the fusion of two loving spirits; each takes the best from the other, but only to give it back again enriched with love.

—ROMAIN ROLLAND,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY FRENCH WRITER

 

 

Are we not one? Are we not joined by heaven? Each interwoven with the other’s fate?

—HANDWRITTEN VERSE
ON AN 1852 VALENTINE’S DAY CARD

 

 

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, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVELIST

. . . But We’re Still Individuals

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

—BONO, LEAD VOCALIST OF U2

 

 

A summer breeze can be very refreshing; but if we try to put it in a tin can so we can have it entirely to ourselves, the breeze will die. Our beloved is the same. He is like a breeze, a cloud, a flower. If you imprison him in a tin can, he will die. Yet many people do just that. They rob their loved one of his liberty, until he can no longer be himself. They live to satisfy themselves and use their loved one to help them fulfill that. That is not loving; it is destroying.

—THICH NHAT HANH,
BUDDHIST MONK, TEACHER, AUTHOR,
POET AND PEACE ACTIVIST

 

 

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE, 20TH-CENTURY GERMAN
POET, LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

—SARA TEASDALE,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

 

 

Love is . . . the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you.

—DR. WAYNE W. DYER,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN AUTHOR,
YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES

 

 

Sometimes, when we’re lying together, I look at her and I feel dizzy with the realization that here is another distinct person from me, who has memories, origins, thoughts, feelings that are different from my own. That tension between familiarity and mystery meshes something strong between us. Even if one builds a life together based on trust, attentiveness and mutual support, I think that it’s important that a partner continues to surprise.

—BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT

 

 

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky.

—RAINER MARIA RILKE,
20TH-CENTURY GERMAN POET,
LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

Vows and Blessings

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance.

—BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

 

 

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.

—GENESIS 1:28, HOLY BIBLE, KING JAMES VERSION

May fortune bless you! May the middle distance
Of your young life be pleasant as the foreground—
The joyous foreground! And, when you have
reached it,
May that which now is the far-off horizon
(But which will then become the middle distance),
In fruitful promise be exceeded only
By that which will have opened, in the meantime,
Into a new and glorious horizon!

—DR. DALY, IN THE SORCERER BY SIR WILLIAM GILBERT
AND SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN

 

 

Be thou magnified, O bridegroom, like Abraham, and blessed like Isaac, and increase like Jacob, walking in peace and living in righteousness . . .

—GREEK ORTHODOX MARRIAGE SERVICE

 

 

Thou, O bride, be magnified like Sarah, and rejoice like Rebecca, and increase like Rachel, being glad in thy husband and keeping the bounds of the law . . .

—GREEK ORTHODOX MARRIAGE SERVICE

Open the temple gate unto my love,
Open them wide that she may enter in . . .

—EDMUND SPENSER,
16TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
“EPITHALAMION”

 

 

In the words of the English service, “Listen all ye that are present; those that were distant are now brought together; those that were separated are now united.

—ALFRED ERNEST CRAWLEY, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGIST AND WRITER,
THE MYSTIC ROSE

Bring her up to the high altar, that
she may
The Sacred ceremonies there partake,
The which do endless matrimony make . . .

—EDMUND SPENSER,
16TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET, “EPITHALAMION”

 

 

May the nights be honey-sweet for us; may the mornings be honey-sweet for us; may the earth be honey-sweet for us; may the heavens be honey-sweet for us . . . May the plants be honey-sweet for us; may the sun be all honey for us; may the cows yield honey-sweet milk!

—HINDU MARRIAGE RITUAL, “SEVEN STEPS”

In thine honor, my bridegroom, prosper and live;
Let thy beauty arise and shine forth fierce;
And the heart of thine enemies God shall pierce
And the sins of the thy youth will He forgive,
And bless thee in increase and all thou shalt do.
When thou settest thine hand thereto . . .

—JUDAH HALEVI, 11TH-/12TH-CENTURY
SPANISH POET, PHILOSOPHER AND RABBI

 

 

Eternal God, creator and preserver of all life, author of salvation, and giver of all grace: Look with favor upon the world you have made, and for which your Son gave his life, and especially upon this man and this woman whom you make one flesh in Holy Matrimony.

Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.

Grant that their wills may be so knit together in your will, and their spirit in your Spirit, that they may grow in love and peace with you and one another all the days of their life.

Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize and acknowledge their fault, and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.

Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.

Bestow on them, if it is your will, the gift and heritage of children, and the grace to bring them up to know you, to love you, and to serve you.

Give them such fulfillment of their mutual affection that they may reach out in love and concern for others.

Grant that all married persons who have witnessed these vows find their lives strengthened and their loyalties confirmed.

Grant that the bonds of our common humanity, by which all your children are united to one another, and the living to the dead, may be so transformed by your grace, that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven; where, O Father, with your Son and the Holy Spirit, you live and reign in perfect unity, now and for ever.

—BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

A Prayer
for a Wedding

because everyone knows exactly what’s good for another

because very few see

because a man and a woman may just possibly look at each other

because in the insanity of human relationships there still may come a time we say: yes, yes

because a man or a woman can do anything he or she pleases

because you can reach any point in your life saying: now, I want this

because eventually it occurs we want each other, we want to know each other, even stupidly, even uglily

because there is at best a simple need in two people to try and reach some simple ground

because that simple ground is not so simple

because we are human beings gathered together whether we like it or not

because we are human beings reaching out to touch

because sometimes we grow
we ask a blessing on this marriage
we ask that some simplicity be allowed
we ask their happiness
we ask that this couple be known for what it is,
and that the light shine upon it
we ask a blessing for their marriage.

—JOEL OPPENHEIMER,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET AND
COLUMNIST, “A PRAYER FOR A WEDDING”

I bring
To thee this ring,
Made for thy finger fit;
To show by this
That our love is
Or should be, like it.

—ROBERT HERRICK,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET, “TO JULIA”

If you, X, take this woman, Y,
and if you, Y, take this man, X,
you two who have taken each other
many times before, then this
is something to be trusted . . .

—STEPHEN DUNN, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET,
“EPITHALAMION”

 

 

In the words of the English service, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be unto his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.”

—ALFRED ERNEST CRAWLEY, 20TH-CENTURY
BRITISH SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGIST,
THE MYSTIC ROSE

 

 

Now again, our Master, we beseech thee, may thy servants be worthy of the mark of the sign of thy Word through the bond of betrothal, their love for one another inviolable through the firm sureness of their union.

—COPTIC ORTHODOX MARRIAGE SERVICE

Blessed are you, Holy One of the Earth, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are you, Holy One of the Universe. You created all things for your Glory.

Blessed are you, Holy One of the World. Through you mankind lives.

Blessed are you, Holy One of the World. You made man and woman in your image, after your likeness, that they might perpetuate life . . .

Blessed are you, Holy One of All Nature, who makes Zion rejoice with her children . . .

Blessed are you, Holy One of the Cosmos, who makes the bridegroom and bride rejoice.

Blessed are you, Holy One of All, who created joy and gladness; bride and bridegroom, mirth and song, pleasure and delight, love, fellowship, peace and friendship . . .

—THE HEBREW “SEVEN BLESSINGS”

Blessed be You, Life-Spirit of the universe,

Who makes a distinction between holy and not yet holy,

between light and darkness,
between Shabbat and the six days of the week,
between committed and uncommitted,
between common goals and personal goals,
between love and aloneness.
Blessed be you,

Who distinguished between what is holy, and what is not yet holy.

—HEBREW BLESSING FOR THE SABBATH END

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear,
But things remov’d that hidden in there lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live.
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone.
God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine yours hearts in one.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
SONNET XXXI

You will reciprocally promise love,
loyalty and matrimonial honesty.
We only want for you this day
that these words constitute
the principle of your entire life;
and that with the help
of the divine grace
you will observe these solemn vows
that today, before God,
you formulate.

—POPE JOHN PAUL II (1978–2005)

Virgins call on you to prepare them for marriage and
The bride calls on you to make sure
Her husband’s manhood will stand shining forever.
Hail, O sacred father Priapus, hail!

—PRAYER TO PRIAPUS,
ANCIENT GREEK GOD OF FERTILITY

 

 

The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.

—“THE CELEBRATION AND
BLESSING OF A MARRIAGE,”
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

If I had this day to live over, I wouldn’t change one blessed thing. Not one step that got me here with you, right now. I want to be here. I belong here. I love you more than anything. And what’s more . . . I don’t want to live without you. You are an answer to a very big question: Where’s the rest of my heart? . . . You’re in my blood. You’re in a place in me so deep no one else is ever gonna be able to get there again.

—TAD MARTIN (MICHAEL E. KNIGHT)
TO DIXIE COONEY (CADY MCCLAIN),
ALL MY CHILDREN

We will love like dogwood.
Kiss like cranes.
Die like moths.
I promise.

—LARISSA SHMAILO,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET,
“VOW,” A CURE FOR SUICIDE

For all that has been—thanks!
To all that shall be—yes!

—DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD, SWEDISH SECRETARY
GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS

Wedding Day

A wedding, a church wedding, it’s what every girl dreams of. A bridal dress, orange blossoms, the music. It’s something lovely for her to remember all her life. And something for us to remember, too.

—ELLIE BANKS (JOAN BENNETT),
FATHER OF THE BRIDE, 1950

[There was a seriousness to it, but] we [also] saw it as a chance to throw a really big party.

—SCOTT IAN, GUITARIST FOR ANTHRAX,
ON HIS WEDDING

 

At all times: Always remember that this is your day and that you should have it run as you want it. Keep in mind that it is the most romantic and wonderful day in your life.

—“YOUR WEDDING,” AS APPEARED IN A 1993
AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

 

To church in the morning, and there saw a wedding in the church, which I have not seen in many a day; and the young people so merry one with another! And strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and woman gazing and smiling at them.

—SAMUEL PEPYS, 17TH-CENTURY BRITISH DIARIST,
DECEMBER 28, 1665

Dear bride, remember, if you can,
That thing you married is a man.
His thoughts are low, his mind is earthy,
Of you he is totally unworthy;
Wherein lies a lesson too few have learnt it—
That’s the reason you married him, aren’t it?

The organ booms, the procession begins,
The rejected suitors square their chins,
And angels swell the harmonious tide
Of blessings upon the bonnie bride.
But blessings also on him without whom
There would be no bride. I mean the groom.

—OGDEN NASH, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET,
“EVERYBODY LOVES A BRIDE, EVEN THE GROOM”

Tonight is a night of union and also of scattering of the stars,

for a bride is coming from the sky; the full moon.
The sky is an astrolabe, and the Law is Love.

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ, 13TH-CENTURY PERSIAN POET

 

 

The little house was not far away, and the only bridal journey Meg had was the quiet walk with John, from the old home to the new. When she came down, looking like a pretty Quakeress in her dove-colored suit and straw bonnet tied with white, they all gathered about her to say “good-bye,” as tenderly as if she had been going to make the grand tour . . .

They stood watching her, with faces full of love and hope and tender pride, as she walked away, leaning on her husband’s arm, with her hands full of flowers, and the June sunshine brightening her happy face,—and so Meg’s married life began.

—LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, 19TH-CENTURY
AMERICAN WRITER, LITTLE WOMEN

Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, KING HENRY VI

I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.

—KENNETH REXROTH, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
POET, ONE HUNDRED POEMS FROM THE JAPANESE

 

 

On the night of the wedding ceremony, the rapt attention focused upon me, especially by my friends, increased my joy so that I almost leaped with delight while I donned my wedding dress embroidered in threads of silver and gold. I was spellbound by the diamonds and other brilliant jewels that crowned my head and sparkled on my bodice and arms. All of this dazzled me and kept me from thinking of anything else. I was certain I would remain forever in this raiment, the centre of attention and admiration . . . He led me by the hand to the bridal throne and took his place beside me. All the while, I was trembling like a branch in a storm. The groom addressed a few words to me but I understood nothing . . . Finally my new husband took me by the hand. In my daze I knew not where I was being led.

—HUDA SHAARAWI,
20TH-CENTURY EGYPTIAN FEMINIST, HAREM YEARS

Let all thy joys be as the month of May,
And all thy days be as a marriage day.

—FRANCIS QUARLES,
16TH-/17TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET, “TO A BRIDE”

The wind blew all my wedding day,

And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;

And a stable door was banging, again and again,
That he must go and shut it, leaving me.

I was sad
That any man or beast that night should lack
The happiness I had.

—PHILIP LARKIN, 20TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET,
NOVELIST AND CRITIC, “WEDDING WIND”

 

 

Therefore must the bride below have a canopy, all beautiful with decorations prepared for her, in order to honor the Bride above, who comes to be present and participate in the joy of the bride below. For this reason it is necessary that the canopy be as beautiful as possible, and that the Supernal Bride be invited to come and share in the joy.

—“TEREMAH,” FROM THE ZOHAR, 13TH-CENTURY
SEMINAL WORK OF JEWISH MYSTICISM

Come along! Today is a festival!
Clap your hands and say, “The is a day of happiness!”
Who in the world is like this bridal pair?

The earth and the sky are full of sugar. Sugar cane is sprouting all around!

We can hear the roar of the pearly ocean. The whole world is full of waves!

The voices of Love are approaching from all sides. We are on our way to heaven!

Once upon a time we played with angels. Let’s all go back up there again.

Heaven is our home! Yes, we are even higher up than heaven,

Higher than the angels!

My dear, it’s true that spiritual beauty is wonderful. But your loveliness in this world is even more so!

—JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ, 13TH-CENTURY
PERSIAN POET, TRANSLATED
BY A. J. ARBERRY

May her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
20TH-CENTURY IRISH POET,
“A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER”

 

 

The bride . . . floating all white beside her father in the morning shadow of trees, her veil flowing with laughter.

—D. H. LAWRENCE,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

A happy bridesmaid makes a happy bride.

—ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,
19TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

 

 

Next to the bride and groom themselves, the best man is the most important member of the wedding.

—EMILY POST,
AMERICAN ETIQUETTE MAVEN,
COMPLETE BOOK OF WEDDING ETIQUETTE

 

 

She stood in the corner of the bride’s room, wanting to say: I love the two of you so much and you are the we of me. Please take me with you from the wedding, for we belong together . . . her tongue was heavy in her mouth and dumb. She could only speak in a voice that shook a little—to ask where was the veil?

—CARSON MCCULLERS,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELIST AND
PLAYWRIGHT, THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

 

 

The wedding is the chief ceremony of the middle-class mythology (of love and marriage), and it functions as the official entrée of the spouses to their middle-class status. This is the real meaning of saving up to get married.

—GERMAINE GREER,
CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN FEMINIST WRITER

Words About Husbands

One good husband is worth two good wives; for the scarcer things are, the more they’re valued.

—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC

 

 

Sometimes I think my husband is so amazing that I don’t know why he’s with me. I don’t know whether I’m good enough. But if I make him happy, then I’m everything I want to be.

—ANGELINA JOLIE, CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN ACTRESS

Husbands are things wives have to get used to putting up with,

And with whom they breakfast with and sup with.
They interfere with the disciplines of nurseries,
And forget anniversaries,
And when they have been particularly remiss

They think they can cure everything with a great big kiss.

—OGDEN NASH, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET

 

 

Husbands are like wine. They take a long time to mature.

—DONATELLA (LIDIA BIONDI),
LETTERS TO JULIET

[For a woman] a ship captain is a good man to marry . . . for absences are a good influence in love . . . It is to be noticed that those who have loved once or twice already are so much the better educated to a woman’s hand . . . Lastly, no woman should marry a teetotaller, or a man who does not smoke.

—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 19TH-CENTURY
SCOTTISH NOVELIST, VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE

 

 

My husband will never chase another woman. He’s too fine, too decent, too old.

—GRACIE ALLEN, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
COMEDIAN AND WIFE OF COMEDIAN GEORGE BURNS

 

 

Errol Flynn died on a 70-foot boat with a 17-year-old girl. Walter has always wanted to go that way, but he’s going to settle for a 17-footer with a 70-year-old.

—BETSY CRONKITE, WIFE OF
NEWSMAN WALTER CRONKITE

 

 

I’ve been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out.

—LEE GRANT, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN ACTRESS

 

 

Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat!

—JOANNE WOODWARD, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
ACTRESS MARRIED TO ACTOR PAUL NEWMAN

Husband, destiny, my Unknown, You are the spirit who calls me.

Your ring burns fire on my flesh, Willingly I am marked by you.

—BRIDE OF FORTUNE BY ANNA MARIA DELL’OSO
AND GILLIAN WHITEHEAD

 

 

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.

—AGATHA CHRISTIE,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH MYSTERY WRITER

 

 

Ah Mozart! He was happily married—but his wife wasn’t.

—VICTOR BORGE,
20TH-CENTURY DANISH MUSICIAN AND COMEDIAN

 

 

Apparently I am going to marry Charles Lindbergh . . . Don’t wish me happiness—it’s gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor—I will need them all . . .

—ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH,
AMERICAN WRITER AND WIFE OF AVIATOR
CHARLES LINDBERGH, BRING ME A UNICORN

 

 

Perfection is what American women expect to find in their husbands . . . but English women only hope to find in their butlers.

—W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM,
20TH-CENTURY BRITISH WRITER

 

 

I think men who have a pieced ear are better prepared for marriage. They’ve experienced pain and bought jewelry.

—RITA RUDNER,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN COMEDIAN

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.

—GLORIA STEINEM,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FEMINIST

 

 

It takes a man twenty-five years to learn to be married; it’s a wonder women have the patience to wait for it.

—CLARENCE B. KELLAND,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN AUTHOR

 

 

Enjoy your husband, but never think you know him thoroughly.

—LADY BIRD JOHNSON,
WIFE OF 36TH U.S. PRESIDENT,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

Words About Wives

Of all the home remedies, a good wife is the best.

—KIN HUBBARD, 19TH-/20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
JOURNALIST AND HUMORIST

 

 

An ideal wife is one who remains faithful to you but tries to be just as charming as if she weren’t.

—SACHA GUITRY, 19TH-/20TH-CENTURY FRENCH
ACTOR, PLAYWRIGHT AND DIRECTOR

 

 

An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.

—BOOTH TARKINGTON,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELIST

Harpo, she’s a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.

—OSCAR LEVANT, COMPOSER,
MUSICIAN AND ACTOR, TO HARPO MARX

 

 

If you are ever with a girl that is too good for you—marry her.

—REED BENNETT (ASHTON KUTCHER),
VALENTINE’S DAY

 

 

STELLA: Every man’s ready for marriage when the right girl comes along . . .

JEFF: She’s not the right girl for me.

STELLA: Yeah she’s perfect.

JEFF: If she was only ordinary.

STELLA: Yep I can hear you now. Get out of my life you perfectly wonderful woman, you’re too good for me.

—STELLA (THELMA RITTER)
TO JEFF (JAMES STEWART), REAR WINDOW

 

 

I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
16TH U.S. PRESIDENT, IN A LETTER TO
MRS. O. H. BROWNING, APRIL 1, 1838

 

 

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not.

—H. L. MENCKEN, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

No happiness is like unto it, no love so great as that of man and wife, no such comfort as a sweet wife.

—ROBERT BURTON,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH AUTHOR
AND CLERGYMAN

The world well tried—the sweetest thing in life
Is the unclouded welcome of a wife.

—N. P. WILLIS,
19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET AND WRITER

 

 

A wife is one who shares her husband’s thoughts, incorporates his heart in love with hers, and crowns him with her trust. She is God’s remedy for loneliness and God’s reward for all the toil of life.

—HENRY VAN DYKE,
19TH-/20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

 

 

If it hadn’t been for my wife, I couldn’t have stood married life.

—DON HEROLD,
20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN WRITER

I want (who does not want?) a wife,
Affectionate and fair,
To solace all the woes of life,
And all its joys to share;
Of temper sweet, of yielding will,
Of firm, yet placid mind,
With all my faults to love me still,
With sentiment refin’d.

—JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 6TH U.S. PRESIDENT

She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a lo’esome wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o’ mine.

—ROBERT BURNS, 18TH-CENTURY SCOTTISH POET,
“MY WIFE’S A WINSOME WEE THING”

I need a hand to nail the right,
A help, a love, a you, a wife.

—ALAN DUGAN, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET,
“LOVE SONG: I AND THOU”

 

 

An intelligent wife sees through a husband, an understanding wife sees him through.

—ANONYMOUS

 

 

A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into ruins.

—SAMUEL JOHNSON, 18TH-CENTURY BRITISH
DICTIONARY INVENTOR/LEXICOGRAPHER

 

 

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

—GEORGE ELIOT, 19TH-CENTURY
BRITISH NOVELIST

 

 

Husbands, love your wives.

—EPHESIANS 5:25, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

A man’s best possession is a sympathic wife.

—EURIPIDES, ANCIENT GREEK DRAMATIST

 

 

All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite.

—JOHN STUART MILL, 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH
PHILOSOPHER AND ECONOMIST

 

 

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

—ECCLESIASTES 9:9, HOLY BIBLE,
KING JAMES VERSION

 

 

Every married man should believe there’s but one good wife in the world, and that’s his own.

—JONATHAN SWIFT,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH AUTHOR AND SATIRIST

 

 

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well.

—OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 18TH-CENTURY ANGLO-IRISH
PLAYWRIGHT, NOVELIST AND POET,
THE VICTOR OF WAKEFIELD

How much the wife is dearer than the bride.

—LORD LYTTLETON,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

You are my true and honorable wife,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.

—THOMAS GRAY,
18TH-CENTURY BRITISH POET

 

 

All the molestations of marriage are abundantly recompensed with the comforts which God bestoweth on them who make a wise choice of a wife.

—THOMAS FULLER,
17TH-CENTURY BRITISH AUTHOR

 

 

If you have the good luck to find a modest wife, you should prostrate yourself before the Tarpeian threshold, and sacrifice a heifer with gilded horns to Juno.

—JUVENAL, ANCIENT ROMAN POET

 

 

You have been such light to me that other women have been your shadows.

—WENDELL BERRY,
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POET AND
ESSAYIST, “THE COUNTRY OF MARRIAGE”

 

 

In my Sunday school class there was a beautiful little girl with golden curls. I was smitten with her once and still am.

—HARRY S. TRUMAN,
33RD U.S. PRESIDENT

 

 

A wife is essential to great longevity; she is the receptacle of half a man’s cares, and two-thirds of his ill-humor.

—CHARLES READE,
19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH DRAMATIST

A man loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman carries with him a talisman that renders him invulnerable; every one feels that such a one’s life has a higher value than that of others.

—MADAME AMANDINE AURORE LUCIE
DUDEVANT (AKA GEORGE SAND),
19TH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVELIST

To the wife of my bosom
All happiness from everything
And her husband
May he be good and considerate
Gay and cheerful and restful.
And make her the best wife
In the world . . .

—GERTRUDE STEIN, 20TH-CENTURY AMERICAN
WRITER, PATRIARCHAL POETRY

Child to mother, sheep to fold
Bird to nest from wandering wide:
Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.

—A. E. HOUSMAN, 19TH-/20TH-CENTURY BRITISH
POET AND SCHOLAR, “EPITHALAMIUM”

 

 

Being a wife is one of the few occupations where experience on the job doesn’t increase your value or lead to a better offer the second time around.

—LYNNE SPENDER, CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN
FEMINIST AUTHOR

 

 

Married life is a woman’s profession; and to this life, her training—that of dependence—is modeled.

—BRITISH SATURDAY REVIEW, 1857

Said Susanna . . . “I’d have another wedding—but next time round I’d make sure I married someone who didn’t want a wife.”

—ANONYMOUS, WEDDINGS AND WIVES BY DALE SPENDER

 

 

It’s true that I did get the girl, but then my grandfather always said, “Even a blind chicken finds a few grains of corn now and then.”

—LYLE LOVETT, MUSICIAN, UPON MARRYING ACTRESS
JULIA ROBERTS IN 1994 (THEY HAVE SINCE DIVORCED.)

 

 

Man gets nothing brighter than a kind wife . . .

—SEMONIDES, ANCIENT GREEK POET