“A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures...”

“About halfway through I broke down crying, which I hadn't expected. I was a little ashamed, but only a little;it was her, you see, and she never taxed me with the times that I slipped from the way I thought a man should be...the way I thought I should be, at any rate. A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures, and one without must be among the most miserable, I think, the only true blessing of their lives that they don't know how poorly off they are.”

“The creature's good is a superadded quality, in God it is His essence. He is infinitely good; the creature's good is but a drop, but in God there in an infinite ocean or gathering together of good.”

“He was the luckiest man on earth, and he didn’t knowwhy.”

“God chooses our kinsfolk for us; but man chooses his own wife; having free will in that choice on which hangs his own life, and the lives of others. Yet the wisest of men said, 'Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.' Ay, a good wife is the token of such loving favor as we know not yet in this world.”

“But a good wife—a good unworldly woman—may really help a man, and keep him more independent.”