Marriage
David O. McKay’s counsel on marriage: 1) Never shout at each other unless the house is on fire. 2) Never let your wife’s hand touch a door knob. Always open the door for her. 3) Take your wife out once a week. Let her count on a date night each week when you will be together to share feelings.
“Whatever Jesus lays His hands upon lives. If He lays His hands upon a marriage, it lives. If He is allowed to lay His hands on the family, it lives.”
– Howard W. Hunter
“Being happily and successfully married is generally not so much a matter of marrying the right person as it is being the right person.”
– Howard W. Hunter
“Under the plan of heaven, the husband and the wife walk side by side as companions, neither one ahead of the other, but a daughter of God and a son of God walking side by side. Let your families be families of love and peace and happiness. Gather your children around you and have your family home evenings, teach your children the ways of the Lord, read to them from the scriptures, and let them come to know the great truths of the eternal gospel as set forth in these words of the Almighty.”
– Gordon B. Hinckley
“We were not placed on this earth to walk alone.”
– Thomas S. Monson
“Believe that your faith has everything to do with your romance, because it does.”
– Jeffrey R. Holland
“The greatest power God has given to His sons cannot be exercised without the companionship of one of His daughters.”
– Dallin H. Oaks
“And if you suppose that the full-blown rapture of young romantic love is the sum total of the possibilities which spring from the fountains of life, you have not yet lived to see the devotion and the comfort of longtime married love. Married couples are tried by temptation, misunderstandings, financial problems, family crises, and illness, and all the while love grows stronger. Mature love has a bliss not even imagined by newlyweds. True love requires reserving until after marriage the sharing of that affection which unlocks those sacred powers in that fountain of life. It means avoiding situations where physical desire might take control. Pure love presupposes that only after a pledge of eternal fidelity, a legal and lawful ceremony, and ideally after the sealing ordinance in the temple are those procreative powers released in God’s eye for the full expression of love. It is to be shared solely and only with that one who is your companion forever.”
– Boyd K. Packer
“I know you’ve been waiting to hear me talk about marriage. I don’t want to disappoint you. Brethren: Wake up! Sisters: Don’t walk around looking like men. Put some lipstick on. It’s that simple. I don’t know why we complicate things. Don’t look for perfection. Life is a process of becoming perfect. Your companion helps you on that journey. Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him.”
– M. Russell Ballard
“This will be the most important decision of your life, the individual whom you marry… Marry the right person in the right place at the right time.”
– Gordon B. Hinckley
“Before I married her, she had been the girl of my dreams. She was my dear companion for more than two-thirds of a century, my equal before the Lord, really my superior. And now in my old age, she has again become the girl of my dreams. . . I am grateful to be able to say that in our long life together I cannot remember a serious quarrel. Small differences, yes, but nothing of a serious nature. I believe our marriage has been idyllic as anyone’s could possibly be.”
– Gordon B. Hinckley
“You can’t pray for a celestial marriage if you’re living a terrestrial life.”
– Tad Callister
“There is no Latter-Day Saint who dies after having lived a faithful life who will lose anything because of having failed to do certain things when opportunities were not furnished him or her. In other words, if a young man or a young woman has no opportunity of getting married, and they live faithful lives up to the time of their death, they will have all blessings, exaltation, and glory that any man or woman will have who had this opportunity and improved it. That is sure and positive.”
– Lorenzo Snow
“One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: In her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?”
– Ezra Taft Benson
“Choose your love. Love your choice.”
– Thomas S. Monson
“In His plan there are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“Our very civilization itself is based upon chastity, the sanctity of marriage, and the holiness of the home. Destroy these and Christian man becomes a brute.”
– J. Reuben Clark Jr.
“Our marriage ceremonies eliminate the words ’til death do us part’ and instead say ‘for time and all eternity’.”
– L. Tom Perry
“Sister Donna Smith Packer and I have been side by side in marriage for nearly 70 years. When it comes to my wife, the mother of our children, I am without words. The feeling is so deep and the gratitude so powerful that I am left almost without expression. The greatest reward we have received in this life, and the life to come, is our children and grandchildren. Toward the end of our mortal days together, I am grateful for each moment I am with her side by side and for the promise the Lord has given that there will be no end.”
– Boyd K. Packer
“Be worthy of the mate you choose. Respect him or her. Give encouragement to him or her. Love your companion with all your heart. This will be the most important decision of your life, the individual whom you marry. There is no substitute for marrying in the temple. It is the only place under the heavens where marriage can be solemnized for eternity. Don’t cheat yourself. Don’t cheat your companion. Don’t shortchange your lives. Marry the right person in the right place at the right time.”
– Gordon B. Hinckley
“Marriage is sanctified when it is cherished and honored in holiness. That union is not merely between husband and wife; it embraces a partnership with God.”
– Russell M. Nelson
“In God’s plan of happiness, we are not so much looking for someone perfect but for a person with whom, throughout a lifetime, we can join efforts to create a loving, lasting, and more perfect relationship. That is the goal. Brethren, those who save their marriages understand that this pursuit takes time, patience, and, above all, the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It requires you to be kind, envy not, seek not your own, not be easily provoked, think no evil, and rejoice in the truth. In other words, it requires charity, the pure love of Christ. All this won’t just happen in an instant. Great marriages are built brick by brick, day after day, over a lifetime.”
– Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb