It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession.
-Thomas Hardy
"Far from the Madding Crowd"
Quotations
Marriage
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
-Socrates
It is most unwise for people in love to marry.
-George Bernard Shaw
When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.
-Philippa Gregory
"The Other Queen"
The essential matrimonial facts: that to be happy you have to find variety in repetition; that to go forward you have to come back to where you begin.
-Jeffrey Eugenides
"Middlesex"
Marriage is a romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter.
-Anonymous
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards.
-Benjamin Franklin
