The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Interpretation
Marriage's true value lies in how children help adults mature and grow.
Peter De Vries highlights the idea that marriage is less about the act of having children and more about the transformative journey that parenthood offers to adults. Through the responsibilities and challenges of raising children, adults often discover deeper layers of themselves, fostering personal growth and maturity that can only be achieved through the experiences of parenting.
In practice
This quote would be perfect for a speech at a wedding, emphasizing the deeper meaning of marriage.
We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.
I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best -- it's all they'll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money -- provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don't need it.
There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy.
Nothing tends more to cement the hearts of Christians than praying together. Never do they love one another so well as when they witness the outpouring of each other's hearts in prayer.
Jealousy is the suspicion of one's own inferiority.
When the trainer talks to the fighter, there's a connection. You don't always have to say much.
Unless people feel that they are accepted and that they have a right to express their feelings without fear of embarrassment or ridicule, all they will do is react and rebel and struggle for their identity.
Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked, it means that you must be treating people with respect and you must be showing kindness toward them.
The people who have adored me-- there have not been very many, but there have been some-- have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me.
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