Love before marriage is absolutely necessary. – Samuel Richardson
Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation. – Samuel Richardson
O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else! – Samuel Richardson
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. – G.B. Shaw, Getting Married, 1908