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Samuel Johnson on Marriage

1709–1784 England

← All quotes by Samuel Johnson

7 quotes

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Marriages would in general be as happy, if not more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor.

Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)

Sir, it is so far from being natural for a man and a woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives that they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.

Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Johnson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.