Wise Sayings About Marriage

Marriage is a lifelong adventure, filled with joy, laughter, challenges, and growth. As you embark on this exciting journey, here are some wise sayings about marriage to offer inspiration, guidance… and even a chuckle or two!

wise sayings about marriage

Best wise sayings about marriage

Let’s begin with some of our favorite wise marriage sayings and quotes:

1. Happy are those who dream together.
Meena Joy

2. Marriages are like gardens; with careful tending, they can flourish in spite of the weather.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.

3. A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
Mignon McLaughlin

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

5. A good marriage is a contest of generosity.
Antoine Rivarol

6. A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.
Unknown

7. A great marriage is not something that just happens; it’s something that must be created.
John Gottman

8. To laugh together is to fall in love all over again.
Unknown

9. Marriage is a journey, not a destination.
Unknown

Aphorisms for the ages

These short, witty sayings capture the essence of marriage in a single line:

10. Love is not about finding someone to live with; it’s about finding someone you can’t live without.
Rafael Ortiz

11. The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.
Robert C. Dodds

12. Lean on each other’s strengths. Forgive each other’s weaknesses.
Unknown

13. A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.
Anne Taylor Flemming

14. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins

15. Love is not something you look for… love is something you become.
Alina Villasante

16. Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
Unknown

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

Time-tested proverbs

Folk wisdom that offers practical advice for a lasting marriage:

18. Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage.
Finnish proverb

19. Happy wife, happy life.
Unknown

20. Happy spouse, happy house.
Unknown

21. Never go to bed angry.
Unknown

22. It is love that makes the impossible possible.
Indian proverb

23. You can’t always get what you want.
Rolling Stones

24. No road is long with good company.
Turkish proverb

Funny wise sayings about marriage

These words of advice remind us not to take ourselves too seriously:

1. Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.
Nora Ephron

2. Marriage is like a deck of cards. In the beginning, all you need is two hearts and a diamond. But in the end you wish you had a club and a spade.
Unknown

3. I love being married. It’s so great finding one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
Rita Rudner

4. To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash

5. Without Valentine’s Day, February would be… well, January.
Jim Gaffigan

6. People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked.
Paul Newman

7. Marriage, like a submarine, is only safe if you get all the way inside.
Frank Pittman

8. The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.
E. Joseph Cossman

9. A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance, and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.
Paul Sweeney

10. Being in a long marriage is a little bit like that nice cup of coffee every morning – I might have it every day, but I still enjoy it.
Stephen Gaines

A successful marriage quote by Mignon McLaughlin

Short wise sayings about marriage

Bite-sized wisdom for newlyweds:

1. Who, being loved, is poor?
Oscar Wilde

2. The highest happiness on earth is the happiness of marriage.
William Lyon Phelps

3. Love like there’s no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.
Max Lucado

4. All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.
Charles M. Schulz

5. Marriage is not a competition.
Unknown

6. Love is a friendship set to music.
Joseph Campbell

7. Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

8. A good marriage is a contest of generosity.
Diane Sawyer

9. There is only one happiness in life; to love and be loved.
George Sand

10. Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valery

11. To understand – is to love.
William Butler Yeats

12. A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.
Robert Quillen

13. The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes.
Amy Grant

14. Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Share online: Marriage quotes for Instagram captions

Use these short sayings as social media captions and posts:

15. Two hearts in love need no words.
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

16. Where there is love, there is life.
Mahatma Gandhi

17. Here’s to forever, and a day.
Unknown

18. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
Emily Brontë

19. Marriage is like a fine wine, if tended properly, it just gets better with age.
Unknown

20. If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.
Alfred Tennyson

21. Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.
Robert Browning

22. You’re my lobster.
Friends (TV show)

23. A good marriage is each for the other and two against the world.
Robert Brault

24. There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau

25. We loved a love that was more than love.
Edgar Allan Poe

26. Being someone’s first love may be great, but to be their last is beyond perfect.
Unknown

27. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Famous wise sayings about marriage

Marriage sayings and words of wisdom from renowned figures throughout history:

1. The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re right if you love to be with them all the time.
Julia Child

2. Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.
Franz Schubert

3. 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

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

5. There is no greater risk than matrimony. But there is nothing happier than a happy marriage.
Benjamin Disraeli

6. The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love… the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion.
Benjamin Franklin

Literary love: Quotes from authors and books

Words of wisdom from famous authors:

7. 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.
Charles Dickens

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

9. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and you can lose it, but all you lose is by loving. Love makes you vulnerable. Make yourself vulnerable. Be brave enough to love.
C.S. Lewis

10. It is such a happiness when good people get together — and they always do.
Jane Austen

11. A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude.
Rainer Maria Rilke

12. A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
Pearl S. Buck

Philosophical ponderings: Quotes from famous philosophers

Find out what some of the world’s deepest thinkers say about marriage:

13. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu

14. The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

15. There is nothing more admirable than two people who see eye-to-eye keeping house as man and wife, confounding their enemies, and delighting their friends.
Homer

16. True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.
Antoine De Saint-Exupery

17. 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

On-screen inspiration: Lines from movies and TV

Some of the best lines about marriage ever expressed in film and on TV:

18. You complete me.
Jerry Maguire

19. Being married is the nicest thing to be.
If A Man Answers

20. I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.
The Lord of the Rings

21. When you realise 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

22. You make me happier than I ever thought I could be, and if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel the same way.
Friends

23. 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 Notebook

Scriptural sayings: Quotes from the Bible

Find spiritual inspiration in these famous biblical sayings:

24. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1 Corinthians 13:4

25. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has no one to lift him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Inspirational marriage sayings

Words that embrace the shared journey of love:

1. Hold hands and face the future together.
Unknown

2. Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.
Barbara De Angelis

3. You are my best friend, my lover, and my family.
Unknown

4. Keep the fire lit in your marriage and your life will be filled with warmth.
Fawn Weaver

5. Marriage provides the solace of worked-on friendship and the joy of being known profoundly.
Imogene Stubbs

The power of positivity: Uplifting sayings

Quotes that focus on the good:

6. To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
Mark Twain

7. Love doesn’t make the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
Franklin Jones

8. Marriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse. Millions of tiny moments that create your love story.
Jennifer Smith

9. Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.
Robert Browning

10. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyment of sense and reason – and indeed all the sweets of life.
Joseph Addison

Words to live by: Marriage sayings about love

Let these words of love guide your life together:

1. Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.
Unknown

2. Love is a partnership of two unique people who bring out the very best in each other, and who know that even though they are wonderful as individuals, they are even better together.
Barbara Cage

3. You don’t marry one person; you marry three: the person you think they are, the person they are, and the person they are going to become as a result of being married to you.
Richard Needham

4. A great marriage isn’t something that just happens; it’s something that must be created.
Fawn Weaver

5. Think not because you are now wed, that all your courtship’s at an end.
Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza

6. Marriage is a commitment — a decision to do, all through life, that which will express your love for one’s spouse.
Herman H. Kieval

7. Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can’t live without.
James C. Dobson

Strengthening your bond: relationships quotes

8. Let us never forget that we married the person who made us laugh the most.
Mignon McLaughlin

9. Love is the greatest refreshment in life.
Pablo Picasso

10. Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends.
Harville Hendrix

11. Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.
Timothy Keller

12. The first to apologize is the bravest. – The first to forgive is the strongest. – The first to forget is the happiest.
Unknown

13. Marriage. It’s like a cultural hand-rail. It links folks to the past and guides them to the future.
Diane Frolov

A new chapter begins: Sayings for newlyweds

14. Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favourite.
Unknown

15. Marriage is not the goal. It is the start of the journey.
Karen Casey

16. Marriages, like a garden, take time to grow. But the harvest is rich unto those who patiently and tenderly care for the ground.
Darlene Schacht

17. A marriage is a gift. It should be opened up and enjoyed.
Greg Evans

18. The bride and groom — may their joys be as bright as the morning, and their sorrows but shadows that fade in the sunlight of love.
Minna Thomas Antrim

19. May your love be like a river, ever flowing.
Unknown

20. Here’s to love, laughter, and happily ever after!
Unknown


These wise sayings offer a glimpse into the joys, challenges, and enduring power of love in marriage. Remember, a successful marriage requires effort, communication, and a healthy dose of humor. With these timeless words in mind, newlyweds can embark on their journey with a foundation of love, respect, and a dash of laughter.


Thanks for reading this list of wise sayings about marriage. Check out more great wedding content on this site:

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Published 6/28/24