97
Nothing can bring a real sense of security into the home except true love.
- Billy Graham
96
When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.
- C.S. Lewis
95
As God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.
- Thomas Adams
93
If your wife doesn't treat you as she should, be thankful, you might not like what you deserve.
- Jerry Falwell
92
Marriage was ordained for a remedy and to increase the world and for the man to help the woman and the woman the man, with all love and kindness.
- William Tyndale
91
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.
- Martin Luther
90
Men, you'll never be a good groom to your wife unless you're first a good bride to Jesus.
- Tim Keller
89
[Spiritual friendship] is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.
- Tim Keller
88
In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies. It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe and society. Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family's interest. By contrast, contemporary Western societies make the individual's happiness the ultimate value, and so marriage becomes primarily an experience of romantic fulfillment. But the Bible sees GOD as the supreme good - not the individual or the family - and that gives us a view of marriage that intimately unites feelings AND duty, passion AND promise. That is because at the heart of the Biblical idea of marriage is the covenant.
- Tim Keller
87
The man who loves his wife above all else on earth gains the freedom and power to pursue other noble, but lesser, loves.
- David Jeremiah
86
The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.
- Tim Keller
85
What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse's holiness.
- Tim Keller
82
A good wife is heaven's last, best gift to man, - his gem of many virtues, his casket of jewels; her voice is sweet music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, her arms the pale of his safety, her industry his surest wealth, her economy his safest steward, her lips his faithful counselors, her bosom the softest pillow of his cares.
- Jeremy Taylor
81
When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called her Eva, that is to say, the Mother of All. He did not style her wife, but simply mother, mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.
- Martin Luther
80
There is no more lovely, friendly or charming relationship, communion or company, than a good marriage.
- Martin Luther
78
She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him.
- Thomas Fuller
77
Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.
- Zig Ziglar
76
Only with time do we really learn who the other person is and come to love the person for him- or herself and not just for the feelings and experiences they give us.
- Tim Keller
75
We must say to ourselves something like this: 'Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think 'I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.' No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, 'Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing.' He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse.' Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day.
- Tim Keller
74
If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you'll never end up with a nag.
- Zig Ziglar
73
According to the Bible, the marriage act is more than a physical act. It is an act of sharing. It is an act of communion. It is an act of total self-giving wherein the husband gives himself completely to the wife, and the wife gives herself to the husband in such a way that the two actually become one flesh.
- Wayne Mack
72
God has set the type of marriage everywhere throughout the creation. Every creature seeks its perfection in another. The very heavens and earth picture it to us.
- Martin Luther
70
It is not marriage that fails; it is people that fail. All that marriage does is to show them up.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
69
The Lord commands the wife to be submissive. Refusal to submit to the husband is therefore rebellion against God Himself. Submission to the husband is a test of her love for God as well as a test of love for her husband. The wife then must look upon her submission to her husband as an act of obedience to Christ and not merely to her husband.
- Wayne Mack
68
Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage. Today we stay connected to people only as long as they are meeting our particular needs at an acceptable cost to us. When we cease to make a profit - that is, when the relationship appears to require more love and affirmation from us than we are getting back - then we 'cut our loses' and drop the relationship. This has also been called 'commodification,' a process by which social relationships are reduced to economic exchange relationships, and so the very idea of 'covenant' is disappearing in our culture. Covenant is therefore a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage.
- Tim Keller
67
The man who sanctifies his wife understands that this is his divinely ordained responsibility... Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me?
- R. Kent Hughes
66
Both men and women today see marriage not as a way of creating character and community but as a way to reach personal life goals. They are looking for a marriage partner who will 'fulfill their emotional, sexual, and spiritual desires.' And that creates an extreme idealism that in turn leads to a deep pessimism that you will ever find the right person to marry.
- Tim Keller
65
Wherever you find marital failure, you will find a breakdown in real communication. Wherever you find marital success, you will find a good communication system.
- Wayne Mack
64
God created marriage. No government subcommittee envisioned it. No social organization developed it. Marriage was conceived and born in the mind of God.
- Max Lucado
63
Marriage is an exclusive union between one man and one woman, publicly acknowledged, permanently sealed, and physically consummated.
- Assorted Authors
61
Deceive not thyself by overexpecting happiness in the married estate. Remember the nightingales which sing only some months in the spring, but commonly are silent when they have hatched their eggs.
- Thomas Fuller
60
In Ephesians 5, Paul shows us that even on earth Jesus did not use his power to oppress us but sacrificed everything to bring us into union with him. And this takes us beyond the philosophical to the personal and the practical. If God had the Gospel of Jesus' salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only 'works' to the degree that approximates the pattern of God's self-giving love in Christ.
- Tim Keller
59
Though bachelors be the strongest stakes, married men are the best binders, in the hedge of the commonwealth.
- Thomas Fuller
58
It seems almost oxymoronic to believe that this new idealism has led to a new pessimism about marriage, but that is exactly what has happened. In generations past there was far less talk about compatibility and finding the ideal soul mate. Today we are looking for someone who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires, and this creates an unrealistic set of expectations that frustrates both the searchers and the searched for.
- Tim Keller
57
This principle - that your spouse should be capable of becoming your best friend - is a game changer when you address the question of compatibility in a prospective spouse. If you think of marriage largely in terms of erotic love, then compatibility means sexual chemistry and appeal. If you think of marriage largely as a way to move into the kind of social status in life you desire, then compatibility means being part of the desired social class, and perhaps common tastes and aspirations for lifestyle. The problem with these factors is that they are not durable. Physical attractiveness will wane, no matter how hard you work to delay its departure. And socio-economic status unfortunately can change almost overnight. When people think they have found compatibility based on these things, they often make the painful discovery that they have built their relationship on unstable ground. A woman 'lets herself go' or a man loses his job, and the compatibility foundation falls apart.
- Tim Keller
56
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner of his joy; a friend shares my sorrow and makes it but a moiety, but he swells my joy and makes it double.
- Jeremy Taylor
54
Fifty-fifty marriages are an impossibility. They do not work. They cannot work. In marriage someone has to be the final decision maker. Someone has to delegate responsibility, and God has ordained that this should be the husband.
- Wayne Mack
53
While your character flaws may have created mild problems for other people, they will create major problems for your spouse and your marriage.
- Tim Keller
52
Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life; it hath not more ease, but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity; and those burdens are delightful.
- Jeremy Taylor
51
The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and, if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.
- Thomas Fuller
50
Jesus' teaching in general [implies] that happy and fulfilling sexual relations in marriage depend on each partner aiming to give satisfaction to the other. If it is the joy of each to make the other happy, a hundred problems will be solved before they happen.
- John Piper
49
The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.
- C.S. Lewis
48
Marriage is the mother of the world. It preserves kingdoms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself.
- Jeremy Taylor