Skip to content

Anniversary Quotes

There is no anniversary collection behind this page. It is put together from the pages on love, marriage, romance and time, then sorted by quality, so what comes up first is whatever those four pages rate highest.

Expect poems and passages from novels more than card lines. Some of the best material here only works with the sentences around it, which is why each quote links to its own page with the source and the notes. If you plan to put one in print, check the flag first: a line marked misattributed is fine to enjoy and risky to credit.

Random quote on Anniversary

Most quoted on anniversary:

Parents—so essential yet sometimes like something you have stepped in and cannot get off your shoe. What else is there but to love them?

Jeffrey Ford The Empire of Ice Cream (2006)

Time, in all crises, is usually the ingredient missing to make a solution. It is best supplied by an agreement on a pause.

John Keegan The First World War (1998)

Don’t mistake gratitude for love.

Esther Friesner Harlot's Ruse (1986)

Love is ungrateful, infirm, and unworthy of the name of love if it is not faithful in doing every will of God.

Jane Frances de Chantal

SETI is probably the most important quest of our time, and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.

Arthur C. Clarke Seti@Home Donor List (2006)

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.

John Cleese Best New Games (2002)

And I will die, and you will die, and we all will die, and even the stars will fade out one after another in time.

Jack Kerouac Desolation Angels (1965)

Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.

Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles (1950)

What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good.

George MacDonald Phantastes (1858)

I felt in love, not with anything or anybody in particular but with everything.

George Harrison

I am convinced the most unfortunate people are those who would make an art of love. It sours other effort. Of all artists, they are certainly the most wretched.

Norman Mailer The Man Who Studied Yoga (1956)

“Peace, simpleton!” said the Princess. “Though he said he was unhappy, it does not follow that he must be in love.”

Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto (1764)

Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly and never seeking her own; for whosoever a man seeketh his own, there he falleth from love.

Thomas à Kempis The Imitation of Christ (1418)

Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.

Langston Hughes

Follow me reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out!

Mikhail Bulgakov The Master and Margarita (1967)

Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Yip Harburg

Now the sun touched the horizon and the man reined in his horse tiredly, glad that the time for prayer had come.

James Clavell Whirlwind (1986)

It’s like marriage. The race there is between total knowledge of each other and death. If death comes first, it’s considered a successful marriage.

Peter S. Beagle A Fine and Private Place (1960)

The four most expensive words in the English language are "this time it’s different."

John Templeton The Four Pillars of Investing : Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio (2002)

Experienced well-being is on average unaffected by marriage, not because marriage makes no difference to happiness, but because it changes some aspects of life for the better and others for the worse.

Daniel Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

Related topics