Marriage Quotes For All Occasions

So, you're taking the big step, or you already have, and you're commemorating your wedding day.

Either way - congratulations! If you're about to get married, may this be one of the best decisions you've ever made, and may your marriage be a long and happy one. 

If you've been married for a while and you are looking for marriage quotes to commemorate one of the brightest days in your life, these quotes by famous authors and others might inspire, amuse, or entertain you and your loved ones at your anniversary celebration or renewal of vows.

Marriage quotes for all occasions

Here’s one from Sonnet one of the world's most famous wordsmiths, William Shakespeare:

Shakespeare quotes

Sonnet 116

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Here’s a paraphrase in modern English:

Shall I compare you to a summer's day?

You are more lovely and more constant.

Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May,

And summer is far too short.

At times the sun is too hot

Or it often goes behind the clouds

And everything beautiful at some time loses its beauty

By misfortune, or by nature's seasonal course.

But your summer will never fade.

Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess.

Nor will death claim you for his own.

Because, in my eternal verse, you will live forever.

So long as there are people on this earth,

So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

A few short Shakespeare marriage quotes

Tongue-in-cheek advice from the play, Coriolanus:

The fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fallen out with her husband.

For the couple who took their time to get married, from Henry VI:

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

And no list of wedding quotes is complete without a quote from Romeo and Juliet:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Quotes by other writers on marriage and love

On Marriage, Kahlil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But 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.

More quotes on marriage

The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along. - Selected Poems, Rumi

Grief can take care of itself, but to get full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. - Following the Equator, Mark Twain

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. - Mark Twain's Notebook

After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. - Adam's Diary, Mark Twain

Love, as distinct from 'being in love' - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God…'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it. - Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not. - My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult

For in marriage a little license, a little independence there must be between people living together day in and day out in the same house… - Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolfe

When two people have been married for years they seem to become unconscious of each other's bodily presence so that they move as if alone, speak aloud things which they do not expect to be answered, and in general seem to experience all the comfort of solitude without its loneliness. - The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolfe

Don't ever think I fell for you or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it. - Jazz, Toni Morrison

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all. - Beloved, Toni Morrison

You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it, and you have to learn how to accept it. - Paradise, Toni Morrison

In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It's important to combine the two in just the right moment. - After Dark, Haruki Murakami

Touched by an Angel, Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Quirky marriage quotes for weddings and anniversaries

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. - Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams

“Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is the bicycle repair kit.” - Billy Connolly

Don't Panic.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

“More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.” - Doug Larson

 “Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.” - Maya Angelou

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. - The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett

It's still magic even if you know how it's done. - A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett

Need couples therapy?

Relationships and marriages don't always go as we hoped. However, struggling in a relationship doesn't have to mean it's over. Talking with an experienced relationship counselor helps many couples reconnect to the love that brought them together. Online therapy is an option that makes it even easier to get help when you hit rough spots in your relationship. In addition, several studies conclude that for many couples, talking to a therapist online for relationship help is as effective as an office visit, and sometimes even more comfortable. 

Takeaway

Being married involves the beautiful and the challenging, and quotes about marriage can inspire, delight, and renew your bond with each other. However, if you get stuck in the hard parts of married life, online therapy can be a helpful option for rekindling the spark that brought you together.