66 Happy Marriage Quotes That Will Inspire Every Couple

What’s the secret to a happy marriage? Ask ten couples and you'll get ten different answers. There’s the traditional advice, such as “never go to bed angry," or there's the classic reminder to always remember that marriage requires compromise. While the practical takeaways will always vary, there's one universal trait found in all strong, healthy partnerships: Happy marriages tend to be marked with the kind of deep passion and radical acceptance that cultivates a blissful bond between two people.

Of course, no marriage is happy all the time, but by focusing on your partner’s strengths, expressing your love and appreciation every day, and communicating within the partnership, you’ll be celebrating many years of wedded bliss in no time. To celebrate the joys of marriage, we’ve put together a list of the best happy marriage quotes of all time. Whether you’re engaged, newly married, or going on multiple decades married to the same person, you’ll appreciate these 66 happy marriage quotes from literature, film, comedians, celebrities and more.

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Writers and Poets

1. “A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.” —André Maurois
2. “Sensual pleasures have the fleeting brilliance of a comet; a happy marriage has the tranquility of a lovely sunset.” —Ann Landers
3. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” —Mark Twain
4. "There is no remedy for love but to love more." —Henry David Thoreau
5. "I believe in love. I think it just hits you and pulls the rug out from underneath you and, like a baby, demands your attention every minute of the day." —Jodi Picoult
6. “The highest happiness on earth is marriage.” —William Lyon Phelps
7. “To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” —Elizabeth Gilbert
8. “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” —Ruth Bell Graham
9. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you, so close that your hand upon my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my dreams.” —Pablo Neruda
10. “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” —Maya Angelou
11. "Love is a friendship set to music." —Joseph Campbell
12. “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” —Mignon McLaughlin
13. “If I had a flower for every time thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.” —Alfred, Lord Tennyson
14. "This is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible beings who do not run away from life." —Paul Tournier
15. “To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness.” —Robert Brault
16. “Love doesn’t make the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning
17. “Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.” —Louis de Bernières
18. “There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But who wants easier?” —Mary Oliver
19. “Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends.” —Harville Hendrix
20. “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

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Philosophers

1. “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” —Plato
2. "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." —Sophocles
3. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” —Lao Tzu

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Musicians

1. “We have a couple of rules in our relationship. The first rule is that I make her feel like she’s getting everything. The second rule is that I actually do let her have her way in everything. And, so far, it’s working.” —Justin Timberlake
2. "A simple 'I love you' means more than money." —Frank Sinatra
3. “Happy is the man who finds a true friend, and far happier is he who finds that true friend in his wife.” —Franz Schubert
4. "We're friends, too. We love each other, but we actually like each other—and that's an important distinction there. Love is passion and all of that stuff, but actually liking somebody and enjoying someone's company is something slightly different, and it lasts longer. So you can have both, and I think that's important. Be married to your best friend." —Sting
5. "I don’t want to present myself as the 'perfect spouse' and I don’t want to present our relationship as the 'perfect relationship' because I don’t think anybody meets that definition. I think it’s too much pressure to put on anyone. However, I don’t mind being known as somebody who’s devoted to their wife. I am devoted to Chrissy. And when I write about [my commitment to her], it’s me being authentic." —John Legend

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Comedians

1. “I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” —Rita Rudner
2. “Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music, and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays." —Henny Youngman
3. "Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are." —Will Ferrell
   
4. “Monogamy is monotonous, but it’s safe, you know? And that’s my philosophy.” —Joy Behar
   
5. “A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” —Dave Meurer
6. “Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.” —Sam Levenson
7. “The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” —Henny Youngman
8. "I married for love but the obvious side benefit of having someone around to find my glasses cannot be ignored." —Cameron Esposito
9. "He does tell me every single day of my life I'm beautiful, and I do know a lot of women live without that. And it does matter, someone just telling you that." —Mary Steenburgen

Love Quotes to Inspire Marriage From Movies and Television

1. “Look, you want to know what marriage is really like? Fine. You wake up, she's there. You come back from work, she's there. You fall asleep, she's there. You eat dinner, she's there. You know? I mean, I know that sounds like a bad thing, but it's not." —Ray Romano as Ray Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond
2. “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” —Meg Ryan as Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally
3. "I wish I had done everything on earth with you." —Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby
4. “After a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh.” —Chris Noth as Mr. Big, Sex and the City
5. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.” —Ewan McGregor as Christian in Moulin Rouge!

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Literature

1. "Happiness [is] only real when shared." Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
2. "Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it." —Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
3. "Something my dad says...He says you end up marrying the one you don't understand. Then you spend the rest of your life trying." —Frederik Backman, Anxious People
4. "You don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you." —Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone
5. "But once you've actually been in love, you can't live with 'will do;' it's worse than living with yourself." —Andrew Sean Greer, Less
6. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.” ―John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
7. “You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.”― Jodi Picoult, Mercy

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Actors

1. "I have someone who I can talk to about anything and someone who I care more about than I’ve cared about anybody.” —George Clooney
2. “Love is like a friendship caught on fire.” —Bruce Lee
3. "People say, 'Jeez, it must be hard to stay married in show business. I think it's hard to stay married anywhere. But if you marry the right person, it might work out. We give each other a natural sense of support for whatever the other wants to pursue. Our marriage doesn't require vast work." —Tom Hanks
4. “We support each other in everything we do. We want the other one to strive. [It] makes you happy when the other one strives. And you know what, we don’t have a very strong social life because we really like to spend time together. So, we do spend a lot of quality time together." —Salma Hayak
5. “I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other’s gaps...Love is absolute loyalty. People fade, looks fade, but loyalty never fades. You can depend so much on certain people; you can set your watch by them. And that’s love, even if it doesn’t seem very exciting." —Sylvester Stallone
6. "When you end up happily married, even the failed relationships have worked beautifully to get you there." —Julia Roberts
7. "There's no bad consequence to loving fully, with all your heart. You always gain by giving love. It's like that beautiful Shakespeare quote from Romeo and Juliet: 'My bounty is as boundless as the sea. My love is deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have. For both are infinite.'" —Reese Witherspoon
8. "When I feel the support that I have from him, I feel invincible. There's someone behind you on your good days and someone in front of you on your bad days." —Emily Blunt
9. “Marriage is a risk; I think it’s a great and glorious risk, as long as you embark on the adventure in the same spirit.” —Cate Blanchett
10. "Marriage is like a graph—it has its ups and downs and as long as things bounce back up again, you’ve got a good marriage. If it heads straight down, then you’ve got some problems!" —Julie Andrews
11. “I felt that I had met someone who I would absolutely, you know, trade my life for. I met someone who—her life meant more to me than my life.” —George Clooney

Love Quotes to Inspire Happy Marriage From Public Figures

1. “One of the things that really allows us to get through these moments that are obviously very stressful—we’re talking about the future of the free world—it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself and each other. We do a healthy amount of both of that. We don’t take ourselves too seriously in the context of our relationship. You can’t. You just have to flow and know what’s really important.” —Kamala Harris
2. “The secret is that you just take care of each other and admire each other and support each other and you get that back … If Jeffrey and I disagree on something, he always agrees with me!” —Ina Garten
3. “A good marriage is a contest of generosity.” —Diane Sawyer
4. “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they're right if you love to be with them all the time.” —Julia Child
5. "When a marriage works, nothing on Earth can take its place." —Helen Gahagan Douglas
6. “There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” —Martin Luther

When it comes down to it, we hope that these happy marriage quotes are a sweet reminder to you and your partner about why you love each other so much. Whether you use the quotes in your vows, in letters to each other, on birthdays, or during special celebrations, turn to these quotes about marriage for a little inspiration and reminder of how special your love truly is.