“Divorce is the sacrament of adultery.”

— Anonymous 1
Freedom from the narrow boxes defined by personal history
from French proverb

“A woman voting for divorce is like a turkey voting for Christmas.”

— Anonymous 1 via NY Times Review of Books, 1990
Freedom from the narrow boxes defined by personal history
from Irish Slogan

“The liberty of divorce is not only a cure for hatred and domestic quarrels; it is also an admirable preservative against them, and the secret for keeping alive that love which first united the married couple.”

— David Hume 1711 – 1776 CE
"One of the most important philosophers"
from Of Polygamy and Divorces

“women live, as a rule, more for the species than for the individual, and it is this which produces that discord in married life which is so frequent, and almost the normal state.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE
from Works of Schopenhauer

“Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.”

— Victor Hugo 1802 – 1885 CE
Literary pioneer, poet, and social justice provocateur

“Though thou loved her as thyself, as a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day, stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know, when half-god go, the gods arrive.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882 CE
Champion of individualism
from Give All to Love

“the crystallizing feather-touch shook flirtation into love... In half an hour he left the house an engaged man, whose soul was not his own, but the woman's to whom he had bound himself.”

— George Eliot 1819 – 1880 CE
(Mary Anne Evans)
Pioneering literary outsider

from Middlemarch

“To civilize mankind: make marriage difficult and divorce easy.”

— Elbert Hubbard 1856 – 1915 CE
from A Thousand and One Epigrams

“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that exalted, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do they part... Make divorce as easy, as cheap, and as private as marriage.”

— George Bernard Shaw 1856 – 1950 CE
UK playwright second only to Shakespeare
from Getting Married, 1908

“the act of defloration has not merely the socially useful result of binding the woman closely to the man; it also liberates an archaic reaction of enmity towards the man... to which one may ascribe the fact that second marriages so often turn out better than first.”

— Sigmund Freud 1856 – 1939 CE
from The Taboo of Virginity (1917)

“Our heart changes, and this is the greatest cause of suffering in life.”

— Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from In Search of Lost Time

“Because they imply the sacrifice of a more or less flattering situation to purely intimate joys, shockingly irregular marriages are usually the most estimable.”

— Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE via Justin O'Brien
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from Maxims of Marcel Proust

“Divorce is like travel: it is useless if we cannot change ourselves... all wives and husbands are substantially alike”

— Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Pleasures of Philosophy

“When people get married because they think it’s a long time love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment… if the marriage isn’t a first priority in your life, you’re not married.”

— Joseph Campbell 1904 – 1987 CE
Great translator of ancient myth into modern symbols
from Power of Myth

“Unlike other world religions that possess elaborate theologies of marriage, Buddhism has very little to say about the subject, considering marriage (and divorce) a matter of secular concern... [in] Tibet, the mere presence of a Buddhist priest at a wedding ceremony is thought to bring bad luck.”

— John Stevens 1947 CE –
from Lust for Enlightenment (1990)

“The scene seemed somehow divorced from reality, although reality, he knew, could at times be terribly unreal.”

— Haruki Murakami 1949 CE –
from Men Without Women (2017)

“One great spur to divorce is the belief of many men (and no few women) that somehow they just married the 'wrong' person and next time they'll get it 'right.' Not likely. Divorce statistics support Samuel Johnson's characterization of a man's decision to remarry as 'the triumph of hope over experience.'”

— Robert Wright 1957 CE –
from Moral Animal — Why we are the Way we Are

“Divorce can happen in hunter-gatherer societies; men did up and leave after fathering a child or two... the lifestyle of the modern philandering bachelor–seducing and abandoning available women year after year... is just what happens when you take the male mind, with its preference for varied sex partners, and put it in a big city replete with contraceptive technology.”

— Robert Wright 1957 CE –
from Moral Animal — Why we are the Way we Are

“Victorianism went well beyond simple, general repression—the temptation of aging, affluent, or high-status men to desert their wives for a younger model—was met with great social firepower... The double standard may have bolstered monogamy, but these days it brings divorce.”

— Robert Wright 1957 CE –
from Moral Animal — Why we are the Way we Are

“regeneration through loss ... A divorce that feels like death itself can lead to a happier, healthier relationship. The nightmare of getting fired ends up being the best thing that ever happened. A debilitating illness that is initially met with alarm and refusal transforms into new dimensions of compassion.”

— Mingyur Rinpoche 1975 CE –
Modern-day Mahasiddha

from In Love with the World