An apt quotation about love or marriage can really lift a wedding speech. But don’t overdo it; quoting people can sound pompous. Just weave in one or two appropriate lines and do it in a very casual way. If you are quoting somebody famous, make it clear that you had to look it up. Say something like:

I am reminded of the words of Groucho Marx – reminded I should say by my wife, who looked it up last night...

Alternatively, you could make it clear that you are reading a short extract from a book:

I would like to read you the first two lines of one of Linda’s favourite poems...

If you want to quote someone less well known, don’t mention him or her by name. If you do, the reaction will probably be: ‘Who?’ Rather, say something like:

Someone once said that ..., or, It has been said that...

Unfortunately many of the best quotes about love and marriage are quite cynical, and there is absolutely no place for anything negative or sneering in a wedding speech. A very simple way to get round this is to make it very clear that any cynical quote you use most certainly does not apply to the happy couple:

Someone once said that he had gone into marriage with his eyes closed – her father had closed one of them and her brother had closed the other. Well, all I can say is that William went into his marriage with his eyes wide open. And seeing how beautiful Mary looks today, who could blame him?

There are thousands of good quotations about love and marriage. I have listed some of the best below. You’ll find something old, something new, something borrowed, but definitely nothing blue. However, if you can’t find anything suitable, look through one or more of the books listed under ‘Further Reading’ at the back of this book. Alternatively, you could quote something you have heard or read that seems particularly appropriate for the occasion. If you quote a line or two from a song, make sure that it is specific enough to mean something to the bride and bridegroom, yet is still general enough to be appreciated by the rest of the audience. I recently heard a bridegroom say this, and it almost brought the house down:

Well, Liz, in the words of your favourite Carpenters’ song, ‘We’ve only just begun. So much of life ahead. A kiss for luck [he blew her a kiss] and we’re on our way.’ Yes, Liz, we’ve only just begun!

Later they played the record and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

For the less adventurous speaker, here is a sample of more conventional quotations. You’ll find a happy marriage of humour and sentiment – of the ridiculous and the sublime – because that’s what a good wedding speech should be all about.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach (Elizabeth Barrett Browning).

Love has the magic power to make a beggar a king (Emma Goldman).

My heart, thinking
’How beautiful he is’,
Is like a swift river
Which though one dams it and dams it
Will still break through (Otomo no Sakano-e no Iratsume).

Know, my love, that I call you a thief because you have stolen my heart (Margaret of Nassau).

How many idiots has love made wise?
How many fools eloquent?
How many homebred squires accomplished?
How many cowards brave? (Aphra Behn).

As a highwayman knows that he must come to the gallows eventually, so a fashionably extravagant youth knows that, sooner or later, he must come to matrimony (Maria Edgeworth).

Everything which is exchanged between husband and wife in their life together can only be the free gift of love. It can never be demanded by one or the other as a right (Ellen Key).

I love you so passionately that I must hide a great part of my love not to oppress you with it (Marie de Sevigne).

When my soul was in lost-and-found

You came to claim it (Carole King in A Natural Woman).

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny (Emma Goldman).

When you see what some girls marry, you realise how they must hate to work for a living (Helen Rowland).

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in individuals (Pearl Buck).

I’ve sometimes thought of marrying, and then I’ve thought again (Noel Coward).

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

Marriage is an alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgets them (Ogden Nash).

In most good marriages, the woman is her husband’s closest friend and adviser (Nancy Reagan).

When marrying, one should ask oneself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this woman into your old age? (Friedrich Nietzche).

Well married, a man is winged: ill-matched, he is shackled (Henry Ward Beecher).

Marriage is like throwing yourself into the river when all you wanted was a drink (Del Boy, aka David Jason).

Marriage is like a lottery, but you can’t tear up your ticket if you lose (F. M. Knowles).

Man and wife, a king and queen with one or two subjects, and a few square yards of territory of their own: this, really, is marriage. It is a true freedom because it is a true fulfilment, for man, woman and children (D. H. Lawrence).

Love appears every day
for one who offers love.
That wisdom is enough (Mechtild von Magdeburg).

I was so cold I almost got married (Shelley Winters).

Somebody loves me; How do I know?

Somebody’s eyes have told me so! (Hattie Starr, popular Victorian music hall song).

There are no wrinkles in the heart (Juliette Drouet).

At one glance
I love you
With a thousand hearts (Mihri Hatun).

Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it (Erica Jong).

Love, the quest: marriage, the conquest (Helen Rowland).

I am yours,
you are mine.
Of this we are certain.
You are lodged
in my heart,
the small key
is lost.
You must stay there forever (Frau Ava).

We grow old as soon as we cease to love and trust (Louise Honorine de Choiseul).

We can only learn to love by loving (Iris Murdoch).

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

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were lov’d by wife, then surely thee (Anne Bradstreet).

These three efforts are the golden threads with which domestic happiness is woven: to repress a harsh answer, to confess a fault, and to stop (right or wrong) in the midst of argument (Caroline Gilman).

I’ll venture to say, few, if any, in a married state, ever lived in sweeter harmony than we did (Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh).

Love is a general leveller – it makes a king a slave: and inspires the slave with every joy a prince can taste (Elizabeth Inchbald).

The most vital right is the right to love and to be loved (Emma Goldman).

A marriage where not only esteem, but passion is kept awake, is, I am convinced, the most perfect state of happiness: but it requires great care to keep this tender plant alive (Frances Brooke).

Two pure souls fused into one by an impassioned love – friends, counsellors – a mutual support and inspiration to each other amid life’s struggles, must know the highest human happiness. This is marriage; and it is the only corner-stone of an enduring home (Elizabeth Cady Stanton).

Partnership, not dependence, is the real romance in marriage (Muriel Fox).

It usually takes some time for the husband and wife to know each other’s humours and habits, and to find out what surrender of their own they can make with the least reluctance for their mutual good (Amelia Opie).

I love and the world is mine! (Florence Earle Coates).

There are only two things that are absolute realities, love and knowledge, and you can’t escape them (Ella Wheeler Wilcox).

For ‘twas not into my ear you whispered but into my heart.

’Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul (Judy Garland in My Soul is Lost).

Blossoms crowd the branches: too beautiful to endure.

Thinking of you, I break into bloom again (Hsueh T’ao).

I’d rather marry a wise old man than a young fool (Anna Maria of Braunscheig).

Love is moral even without marriage, but marriage is immoral without love (Ellen Key).

Love is a mighty god, you know,
That rules with potent sway;
And when he draws his awful bow,
We mortals must obey (Mary Masters).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife (Jane Austen, opening words of Pride and Prejudice).

Love and hope are twins (Maria Brooks).

I sometimes think the gods have united human beings by some mysterious principle, as musical notes become chords. Or is it that the souls originally one have been divided, and each seeks the half it lost? (Lydia M. Child).

Love understands love; it needs no talk (Frances Ridley Havergal).

Love is life, love is the lamp that lights the universe: without that light this goodly frame the earth, is a barren promontory and man the quintessence of dust (Mary Elizabeth Braddon).

Love remoulds the world nearer to the heart’s desire (Mary Berenson).

If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus (Emma Goldman).

Youth’s for an hour,
Beauty’s a flower.
But love is the jewel that wins the world (Moira O’Neill).

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved (George Sand).

Love is not getting, but giving. It is sacrifice. And sacrifice is glorious! (Marie Dressier).

The sight of you is as necessary for me as the sun for spring flowers (Marguerite of Valois).

Dawn love is silver,
Wait for the west:
Old love is gold love–
Old love is best (Katherine Lee Bates).

Whoever loves true life, will love true love (Elizabeth Barrett Browning).

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

Love is the light and sunshine of life. We cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless someone we love enjoys it with us (Sir John Avebury).

Love is the wine of existence (Henry Ward Beecher).

The great secret of successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters (Harold Nicolson).

Love is a great force in life; it is indeed the greatest of all things (E.M. Forster).

Eternal love, and everlasting love (Thomas Otway).

Love is more than gold or great riches (John Lydgate).

Love is the only weapon we need (Revd. H.R.L. Sheppard).

When one loves somebody everything is clear – where to go, what to do – it all takes care of itself and one doesn’t have to ask anybody about anything (Maxim Gorky).

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness (Bertrand Russell).

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead (Bertrand Russell).

Success in marriage is more than finding the right person; it is being the right person (Rabbi B.R. Bricker).

Marriage is a mutual partnership if both parties know when to be mute (Anon).

I love you more than yesterday and less than tomorrow (Edmond Rostand).

A toast to sweethearts. May all sweethearts become married couples and may all married couples remain sweethearts (Anon).

Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses (Vincent Lean).

The love we give away is the only love we keep (Elbert Hubbard).

The trouble was, I went into marriage with both eyes closed – her father closed one and her brother closed the other (Max Kauffman).

Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile (Franklin P. Jones).

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day (André Maurois).

A marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short (Andre Maurois).

A successful marriage involves falling in love many times – with the same person (Bob Monkhouse).

Husbands are like fires ... they go out when unattended (Zsa Zsa Gabor).

Marriage is a great institution – no family should be without it (Bob Hope).

Love is like oxygen. You get too much you get so high — not enough you’re going to die (D. Ream’s Peter Cunnah).

You can always tell when a husband is lying – his lips move (London Mayor Ken Livingstone).

How absurd and delicious it is to fall in love with somebody younger than yourself (Barbara Pym).

The critical period in matrimony is breakfast time (A.P. Herbert).

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight (Phyllis Diller).

When a man brings his wife flowers for no reason – there’s a reason (Molly McGee).

Love makes the world go around (Proverb).

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up (Ogden Nash).

The reason husbands and wives do not understand each other is because they belong to different sexes (Dorothy Dix).

True love never grows old (Proverb).

Like fingerprints, all marriages are different (George Bernard Shaw).

Marriage is so popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity (George Bernard Shaw).

Love does not consist of gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

Marriage is like holding an electric wire – it can be shocking but you can’t let go (Anon).

Their love makes Vesuvius look like a damp sparkler (Alida Baxter).

Don’t marry anyone until you’ve seen them drunk (Anon).

Where love is concerned, too much is not enough (Anon).

Any man who says he can see through a woman is missing a lot (Groucho Marx).

All unhappy marriages come from the husband having brains (P.G. Wodehouse).

Marriage is like pleading guilty with an indefinite sentence and no parole (Horace Rumpole, with a little help from John Mortimer).

For in what stupid age or nation,

Was marriage ever out of fashion? (Samuel Butler).

Don’t let your marriage go stale. Change the bag on the Hoover of life (Victoria Wood).

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly (Voltaire).

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man’s habits and then complain that he’s not the man she married? (Barbra Streisand).

It has been said that a bride’s attitude towards her betrothed can be summed up by three words associated with weddings: Aisle, altar, hymn (Anon).

Her husband made her happy by adding some magic to their marriage ...he disappeared (Nicholas Murray Butler).

When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one (Helen Rowland).

You live in your heart, so you have to be very careful about what you put there (Marti Caine).

A daughter’s a daughter for all of her life, but a son is a son till he gets a wife (Anon).

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything and two minus one equals nothing (Mignon McLaughlin).

Two can live as cheaply as one, and after marriage they do (Anon).

Nowadays two can live as cheaply as one large family used to (Joey Adams).

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

True love is like the misty rain that falls so softly, yet floods the river (Nigerian proverb).

Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint and many other qualities you wouldn’t need if you stayed single (Anon).

A ring on the finger is worth two on the phone (Harold Thomson).

Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one (Maria Lovell).

Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up (Joseph Barth).

Let there be spaces in your togetherness (Kahlil Gibran).

When you are in love, you tell each other a thousand things without talking (Hawaiian proverb).

Let’s get married ... It’s a piece of paper but it says, ‘I love you’ (The Proclaimers, Let’s Get Married).

I will never marry because I could never be satisfied with any woman stupid enough to have me (Abraham Lincoln).

If you would have a happy family life, remember two things: in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current (Thomas Jefferson).

The heart can do any thing (French proverb).

A good husband should be deaf and a good wife blind (French proverb).

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go out to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesday, I go Fridays (Henry Youngman).

It takes two to make a marriage a success and only one a failure (Herbert Samuel).

Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars! (Bette Davis to Paul Henreid in Now Voyager).

Married couples resemble a pair of scissors, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them (Sydney Smith).

Every man needs a wife because things sometimes go wrong that you can’t blame on the government (Anon).

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life (Lord Byron).

Actually, I believe in marriage, having done it several times (Joan Collins).

Second marriage: the triumph of hope over experience (Samuel Johnson).

Zsa Zsa Gabor got married as a one-off and it was so successful she turned it into a series (Bob Hope).

I’m not so old, and not so plain, and I’m quite prepared to marry again (W.S. Gilbert – useful for second marriages).

Love and marriage,
Love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage. (Popular song by Sammy Cahn – particularly apt if the couple travelled by horse and carriage).

Marriage is an armed alliance against the outside world (G.K. Chesterton).

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart (Helen Keller).

Everything I do I do it for you (Record-breaking No. 1 hit by Bryan Adams).

Love is like a curry. You really have to have confidence in it to enjoy it (Mike Smith).

A woman is like a tea bag – you don’t know her strength until she is in hot water (Nancy Reagan).

Mary and I have been married for 47 years, and not once have we ever had an argument serious enough to mention the word divorce ... murder, yes, but divorce, never (Jack Benny).

I belong to Bridegrooms Anonymous. Whenever I feel like getting married they send over a lady in a housecoat and hair curlers to burn my toast for me (Dick Martin).

I am feeling very lonely. I’ve been married for 15 years, and yesterday my wife ran off with the chap next door. I’m going to miss him terribly (Les Dawson).

I don’t for the life of me understand why people keep insisting marriage is doomed. All five of mine worked out (Peter De Vries).

I’m the only man who has a marriage licence made out ‘To Whom It May Concern’ (Mickey Rooney).

Marriage turns a night owl into a homing pigeon (Glenn Shelton).

Most girls seem to marry men who happen to be like their fathers.

Maybe that’s why so many mothers cry at weddings (Jenny Eclair).

Marriage is like wine. It gets better with age (Dudley Moore).

Love is the answer and you know that for sure (John Lennon).

When I proposed, I said, ‘I offer you my hand, my heart and my washing’ (A.A. Milne).

Marriage: a strong union which defies management (Will Rogers).

It was a beautiful wedding – one of my better ones (Jim Davidson).

Woman begins by resisting man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat (Oscar Wilde).

I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all the afternoon and a cat that comes home late at night (Marie Corelli).

Getting married is like getting a dog. It teaches you to be less self-centred, to expect sudden, surprising outbursts of affection, and not to be upset by a few scratches on your car (Will Stanton).

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays; clutch it, and it darts away (Dorothy Parker).

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone (Anthony Burgess).