“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.”

“A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.”

Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) British poet

“For friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it.”
Nam et secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia et adversas partiens communicansque leviores.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

“Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

“[Same-sex marriage] is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

“If our definition of happiness is "experiencing that which is pleasurable," we are going to be disappointed a lot of the time.”

Noah Levine (1971) American Buddhist teacher

“There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

“Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence--and every achievement is an expression of it.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist