Our local newspaper featured an article about a couple celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary last week.  They’re in their 90’s!  That’s an entire lifetime of being married… of events, occurrences, milestones…a lifetime of crumbs on the counter and picking up soldiering socks that guard the outside of the hamper.   A lifetime of kisses, hugs and ‘I love you’s” whispered at bedtime…

My husband’s grandparents were married 70 years.  My neighbor recently attended her in-law’s 50th wedding anniversary.  Someone asked her father in law his thoughts on being married for 50 years.  His reply…”I don’t recommend it.”    

What’s the secret to staying married and being reasonably happy for 10-20-50-75 years?   Is there an easy answer to that question?  Hmm…

Here are a few quotes on marriage from some of the world’s finest authors and poets, to get you pondering.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day. Andre’ Maurois (1885-1967), French Author

Marriage is tough, because it is woven of all these various elements, the weak and the strong.  “In love-ness” is fragile for it is woven only with the gossamer threads of beauty.  It seems to me absured to talk about “happy” and “unhappy” marriages. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, U.S. author

A journey is like marriage.  The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. John Steinbeck (1902-1968), U.S. author

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.  Samuel Johnson    (1709-1784), British author

Marriage is the operation by which a woman’s vanity and  a man’s egotism are extracted without an anesthetic. Helen Rowland (1875-1950), U.S. journalist

Chains do not hold a marriage together.  It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.  That is what makes a marriage last- more than passion or even sex! Simone Signoret (1921), French film actor

The best friend will probably get the best spouse, because a good marriage is based on the talent for friendship. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher

Love is not weakness.  It is strong.  Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.  Boris Pasternak, Russian author (Dr. Zhivago)

Thoughts?  Do share in the comments.

Quotations Source: Bartleby.com