“The worth of a wife is a man’s good fortune;
His jewels are his good children.”

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Serenity
Context: The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.

The Relapse, Act III, sc. ii (1697)

Mîn bruodr und ich daz ist ein lîp,
als ist guot man unt des guot wîp.
Bk. 15, st. 740, line 29; p. 369.
Parzival

Variant: It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Saints (1983)

Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 11, edited by George Birkbeck Hill

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 191.

Source: Meditations

Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 183.