The Best Marriage Quotes of All Time

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Looking for the best marriage quotes? You’re in the right place.

Marriage is one of the greatest blessings in life, and choosing your spouse is one of the most important decisions you will ever make.

While finding the person you want to spend your life with isn’t always easy, spending every day with the person you love the most makes the journey worthwhile.

The idea of settling down and getting married might seem old fashioned, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still an important goal for many people. Busy though our lives may be, most of us are still going to considerable lengths to try and meet that special someone.

A bride and groom holding hands as he embraces her from behind
“Who we marry is one of the most important decisions in life. One that will influence the level of happiness, growth, and success, like no other choice.” – Nathan Workman

However you met your spouse, your wedding day is (or will be) one of the best days of your life.

Celebrating your love and making a lifelong commitment to each other in front of your family and friends is hard to beat! But the wedding day is just the very beginning of your marriage, which may face challenges, hardships, amazing highs, and crushing lows.

Whatever happens in your married life, the most important thing is facing the future together.

In honor of marriages everywhere, we’ve put together a list of the best marriage quotes of all time. So whether you’re looking for laughs, inspiring words, or the perfect sentiment for an anniversary card, you’ll find what you’re looking for here.

Romantic Quotes about Marriage

Though there are many different kinds of love, the romantic love we feel with “the one” – whether we aren’t married yet, newlywed, or have been married for decades – is what sets this relationship apart.

Romance – defined as “a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love” – has inspired writers, poets, musicians, and many others for generations. From the poetry of the Ancient Romans and Greeks to modern day movies, our fascination with love is part of what makes us human.

Keeping the flame of romantic love alive is one of the great challenges of marriage. Work, everyday tasks, pets, household chores, and looking after the kids are just some of the things that can make it difficult to prioritize making time for romance. But Psychology Today warns us that being romantic is a crucial part of maintaining, and growing, your relationship. What’s more, couples who fail to find time to be romantic with one another are less likely to stay together than those who do.

Finding romance doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming. It could just be something as simple as turning your phones off during the evening, making time for a coffee date at the weekend, preparing a special meal together, sharing a bath, or kissing one another before leaving the house.

Making your relationship a priority – even when you have a lot on your plate – is vital for a long and happy marriage.

Whether you’re looking to remind yourself of the importance of romance, or for a sweet and meaningful way to confess your love to your spouse, these are some of the most romantic quotes ever.

Audrey Hepburn Marriage quote "If I get married, I want to be very married"
“If I get married, I want to be very married.” – Audrey Hepburn

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me… everyday.

Nicholas Sparks

If I know what love is, it is because of you.

Hermann Hasse

The essence of marriage is companionship, and the woman you face across the coffee urn every morning for ninety-nine years must be both able to appreciate your jokes and to sympathize with your aspirations.

Elbert Hubbard

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

Elizabeth Gilbert
Noah Calhoun quote "The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds"
“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.” – Noah Calhoun

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.

Helen Keller

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.

Criss Jami

They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Ronald Reagan

If I had a flower for every time thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Plato quote "Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet"
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” – Plato

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate then when I fall asleep your eyes close.

Pablo Neruda

I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

Marilyn Monroe

What is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.

Victor Hugo

I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.

Nicholas Sparks

Who, being loved, is poor?

Oscar Wilde
Edgar Allen Peo quote "We loved with a love that was more than love"
“We loved with a love that was more than love.” – Edgar Allan Poe

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Henry David Thoreau

What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life–to strength each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

George Eliot

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.

Sarah Dessen

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

Dr. Seuss

Your absence has not taught me to be alone, it merely has shown that when together we cast a single shadow on the wall.

Doug Fetherling
Arrigo Boito quote "When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew"
“When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.” – Arrigo Boito

Marriages are like fingerprints; each one is different and each one is beautiful.

Maggie Reyes

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

Andre Maurois

There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But who wants easier?

Mary Oliver

You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.

Oscar Wilde

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.

When Harry Met Sally
Mignon McLaughlin marriage quote "A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person"
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin

Funny Marriage Quotes

However long you’ve been together, laughter is at the heart of a happy marriage.

Jeffrey Hall, of the University of Kansas, has analyzed 39 studies (with more than 15,000 participants) over the last 30 years to try to understand the role of laughter in marriage.

He found that “playfulness between romantic partners is a crucial component in bonding and establishing relational security” and that laughter, “particularly shared laughter, is an important indicator of romantic attraction between potential mates.”

Making each other laugh also has a significant impact on the relationship satisfaction couples feel. So, a good sense of humor shouldn’t just be something you look for at the start of a relationship – it should be something you continue to work on throughout your marriage.

So here are some funny marriage quotes to bring some giggles whether you share them together, or think about one another while you’re reading!

I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

Rita Rudner

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Benjamin Franklin
Anonnymous quote "If you think your wife is the weaker sex, try pulling the blankets over to your side at night"
“If you think your wife is the weaker sex, try pulling the blankets over to your side at night.” – Anonymous

Marriage a bond between a person who never remembers anniversaries and another who never forgets them.

Ogden Nash

Marriage is like trading in the adoration of many for the sarcasm of one.

Mae West

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Winston Churchill

Everyone is born equal in life, until they get married.

Anonymous

Marriage is a wonderful institution… but who wants to live in an institution?

Groucho Marx

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

Anonymous

We were perfectly happy until we decided to live happily ever after.

Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they’re too old to do it.

Ann Bancroft
Helen Rowlannd marriage quote "When you see a married couple walking down the street, the one that’s a few steps ahead is the one that’s mad"
“When you see a married couple walking down the street, the one that’s a few steps ahead is the one that’s mad.” – Helen Rowland

My wife told me the other day that I don’t take her to expensive places any more, so I took her to the gas station.

Anonymous

You know, there is a name for people who are always wrong about everything all the time – Husband!

Bill Maher

If you want your wife to listen to you, then talk to another woman; she will be all ears.

Sigmund Freud

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Michel de Montaigne

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 into mutually satisfying weirdness–and call it love–true love.

Robert Fulgham
Zsa Zsa Gabor marriage quote "A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished"
“A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.” – Zsa Zsa Gabor

Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.

Zig Ziglar

Inspiring Marriage Quotes

Marriage and romance are complex concepts that mean many different things to different people.

The idea of committing to spending your life with another person can seem a little overwhelming, because it means that you always have to take another person’s thoughts and feelings into consideration – when previously, you only had to worry about yourself.

Scary though embarking on marriage can be, it is also an incredibly joyful thing. A spouse is your life partner, best friend, lover, confidant, travel buddy, co-parent, and many other things.

This nature of this deep and meaningful relationship has invited plenty of discussion from philosophers, poets, writers, and other great minds throughout history.

Mahatma Ghandi marriage quote "Where there is love there is life."
“Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Ghandi

For you see, each day I love you more. Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.

Rosemond Gerard

In other relationships, people are different entities but in marriage, the couple is considered as one. This is what makes marriage a different kind of bond.

Mark McGrann

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Maya Angelou

Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

Leo Buscaglia

In your light, I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.

Rumi
Lao Tzu quote "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage"
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Fredrich Nietzche

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Love can come when you’re already who you are, when you’re filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space.

Deb Caletti

A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.

Dave Meurer
Helen Keller marriage quote "All that we love deeply becomes a part of us"
“All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” – Helen Keller

Time is very slow for those who wait. Very fast for those who are scared. Very long for those who lament. Very short for those who celebrate. But for those who love, time is eternal.

William Shakespeare

When you love someone, you love them as the person they are, and not as you’d like them to be.

Leo Tolstoy

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.

Simone Signeret

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Epicurus
Ruth Bell Graham quote "A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers"
“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” – Ruth Bell Graham

Quotes for Newlyweds

Your wedding day should be one of the best days of your life.

Committing to your partner, declaring your love for one another, and bringing two families together is a joyous occasion! It’s also the start of what will hopefully be a long and happy life together.

They say the first year of marriage is the hardest, and in a way – it’s true!

Even if you’ve been together for a long time, the shift in your status can require some adjustment. You might also be learning how to live with one another, what each of you expects from your marriage, or navigating other personal issues together.

Whether you’re newly married, or just want to put some thoughtful wisdom for the happy couple in a wedding card, these marriage quotes are especially for newlyweds.

Robert C Dodds quote "The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together"
“The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.” – Robert C. Dodds

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Henry Ford

Marriage is over in an hour, and yet it takes a lifetime to be really married.

E. Stanley Jones

The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It’s a choice you make- not just on your wedding day, but over and over again – and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife.

Barbara De Angelis

Marriage is a huge investment: of time, of energy and of emotion. Protect and keep contributing to your investment.

Karen Gordon

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Jim Rohn

It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.

John Wooden

Until you learn how to fight together, you will fight against each other.

Anonymous
Tim Mullen quote "Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we married"
“Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we married.” – Tim Mullen

Once upon a time, I became yours, and you became mine. And we’ll stay together through the tears and the laughter because that’s what they call happily-ever-after.

Kathy R. Jeffords

I assumed all marriages which fail have one or both of the spouses doing something wrong and the wrongdoing leads to a breakup. I was wrong. Doing nothing is equally as bad. Because people don’t float together, they float apart. To stay together, you need a tether. To thrive, a couple must cling and cleave as if there’s a massive wave coming at them. Because there is a wave called drift – laziness, selfishness, convenience, comfortable, resentment, indiscipline, busy. And before long, you look around, and you lost sight of your spouse. Stay tethered: live your vows. Your relationship is counting on it.

Ngina Otiende
Marriage quote "A sure sign of a man’s strength is how gently he loves his wife"
“A sure sign of a man’s strength is how gently he loves his wife.” – Unknown

No relationship is all sunshine, but two people can share an umbrella and survive a storm together.

Anonymous

A good marriage is one where each partner secretly suspects they got the better deal.

Anonymous

Your marriage is a glorious bond but don’t take it as an easy task. It is meant to be worked upon similar to all of your other relationships.

Raymond Eido

Always strive to give your spouse the very best of yourself; not what’s leftover after you have given your best to everyone else.

Dave Willis

Simply put, a marriage is not a marriage without the existence of two individuals who promised to love each other.

Jessica Gardner
Dave Willis quote "Your marriage vows are most important in those moments when they are most difficult to keep"
“Your marriage vows are most important in those moments when they are most difficult to keep.” – Dave Willis

Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.

Samuel Richardson

When two people become one by way of marriage, it is not only their hearts that are united, but their minds and souls as well.

Julie Donner Anderson

The man who puts into marriage only half of what he owns will get that out.

Ronald Reagan

A strong marriage rarely has two people strong at the same time. It is a husband and wife who take turns being strong for each other in the moment the other is weak.

Ashley Willis

Marriage is another momentous life change. Choose right, and it might be the most positive decision you ever make.

Patrick Foley
Khalil Gibran quote "Marriage is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity"
“Marriage is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.” – Khalil Gibran

Religious Marriage Sayings

Marriage remains an incredibly important tradition in every major religion in the world.

Though fewer people than ever are choosing to get married in a house of worship, it doesn’t mean that faith doesn’t play an important role in marriage anymore.

Many are still inspired by the scriptural teachings of their faith, and turn to them for advice on marital roles and achieving harmony. Their communities also play an important role in providing examples of good marriage, and helping couples make time to prioritize their relationship.

These beautiful religious marriage quotes are perfect to share with friends and family who have faith at the heart of their marriage.

Henry Ward Beecher quote "I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love"
“I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.” – Henry Ward Beecher

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

Martin Luther

Love is patient. Love is kind. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4

Marriage is a gift from God to us. The quality of our marriages is a gift from us to Him.

Anonymous

Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.

Martin Luther

As God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.

Thomas Adams

When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

C.S. Lewis

Marriage is such a beautiful relationship and a gift from God. It’s God’s design, created between a man and a woman.

Whitney Meade
Shakespeare quote "God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts into one"
“God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts into one.” – William Shakespeare

Scripture says, in all labor there is profit and nowhere is this more true than in the marriage relationship.

Wayne Mack

Love is a gift of one’s inner most soul to another so both can be whole.

Buddha

It is incumbent upon you and your wife to each do what is dependent on them to bring their hearts together and strengthen peace in the home. And if they truly desire this, then surely they will succeed!

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson

We hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of marriage quotes! Let us know your favorite below.

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Natalie Seale

Natalie Seale is a writer and researcher with an MA, MSc, and PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh. Natalie is an avid reader, a keen traveller, and enjoys cooking and walking with her English Spaniel. Her posts focus on inspiring ideas and tips that help people learn, gro, and inspire others.

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