Quotes & Sayings About Courtship

And then his true courtship of her had its beginning; and to the worship of his body, he joined the fairest garlands from the treasure-house of his mind, and made a bower for her.

Adored; caressed into delight; conducted by delicate paths into ravishing labyrinths where pleasure, like carillons on glass, played upon pleasure, she leaned on his voice, and sometimes answered it. — Dorothy Dunnett

During courtship, guarding each other's purity and refraining from intimacy are the acts of lovemaking. — Joshua Harris

I sometimes think we should go back to the old days, when there was proper courtship, when people walked out together for weeks and weeks before anything happened. At least then you know something about each other, you have some solid ground to put your feet on. We're all so impatient now, we just want to get to the main action. — Tania Kindersley

Extremely self-conscious in its craft, in many ways The Hand of Ethelberta is an exploration of fiction as illusion, which involves parody of the conventions it employs; romance, melodrama and farce, and a rejection of realism for absurdist and surrealistic effects. The 'hand' of Ethelberta is an obvious, ironic allusion to courtship, and the sub-title, 'A Comedy in Chapters', suggests the novel's affinity with the conventions of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy of manners. — Geoffrey Harvey

Courtship? Had I said courtship? What did I think, that this was Jane freakin' Eyre? — Terri Farley

Falling in love is better than standing in hate. — Matshona Dhliwayo

David Eagleman describes how you can take a male stickleback fish and have a female fish trespass on its territory. The male gets confused, because it wants to mate with the female, but it also wants to defend its territory. As a result, the male stickleback fish will simultaneously attack the female while initiating courtship behavior. The male is driven into a frenzy, trying to woo and kill the female at the same time. This works for mice as well. Put an electrode in front of a piece of cheese. If the mouse gets too close, the electrode will shock it. One feedback loop tells the mouse to eat the cheese, but another one tells the mouse to stay away and avoid being shocked. By adjusting the location of the electrode, you can get the mouse to oscillate, torn between two conflicting feedback loops. — Michio Kaku

If insemination were the sole biological function of sex, it could be achieved far more economically in a few seconds of mounting and insertion. Indeed, the least social of mammals mate with scarcely more ceremony. The species that have evolved long-term bonds are also, by and large, the ones that rely on elaborate courtship rituals ... Love and sex do indeed go together. — E. O. Wilson

possible topics around which the currents of speech may flow: Death and the danger of death: violence, fighting, sickness, fear, dreams, premonitions and communication with the dead. Sex and relations between the sexes: dating, courtship, proposals, marriage, breaking off relationships, affairs, intermarriage. Moral indignation: assignment and rejection of blame, unfairness, injustice, gossip, violations of social norms. — William Labov

Oh yes, your relationship with Miss Bard is positively ordinary."
"Be quiet."
"Crossing worlds, killing royals, saving cities. The marks of every good courtship. — V.E Schwab

an indefinite courtship soon injures a woman's position and credit, sooner than you think.' 'Baptista, — Thomas Hardy

Did you know the bear idea of courtship is to kidnap their mates off the streets? Surely not. Surely yes. — Nalini Singh

Throughout our courtship, Kenny told me that he had proof that Saddam Hussein was a threat because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. I told him, 'You had me at weapons.' — Renee Zellweger

I have a hundred reasons to dislike this gentleman," Erica reminded herself aloud. "And a thousand reasons more not to go courting with any man."
Lavinia laughed at that. "Whenever has a woman's heart listened to her head? — Davis Bunn

I have long had a theory Bill Clinton-Hillary Clinton relationship. Not how they met, not that story, not the courtship or any of that. But how it happened that this once-in-a-lifetime woman. — Rush Limbaugh

Let me get this straight," Nina said. "You haven't kissed me because the setting isn't suitably romantic?"
"This isn't about romance . A proper kiss, a proper courtship. There's a way these things should be done."
"For proper thieves?" The corners of her beautiful mouth curled and for a moment he was afraid she would laugh at him, but she simply shook her head and drew even nearer. Her body was the barest breath from his now. The need to close that scrap of distance was maddening.
"The first day you showed up at my house for this proper courtship, I would have cornered you in the pantry," she said. — Leigh Bardugo

The amusements of broadcast consist mainly of songs, stories, and games, just as in tribal life. The songs and stories are mostly about courtship, the games mostly played by men, just as in tribal life. — Stewart Brand

While I do not agree with the whole of the idea, there is some truth to it. Otherwise, why do some experience matrimonial bliss independent of the amount of time spent in courtship? I have found that, oftentimes, the married couples who married after a brief courtship are just as happy as those who have known each other their entire lives." "That — Jennifer Joy

If you were to succeed in prolonging the deliriously ecstatic puppy-dog love stage of the first months of courtship through-out the entire relationship itself-through marriage, unto death-would this same love, so celebrated, so sought after, break down in utter incredulity at the duration of its own existence? — Courtney Maum

No sooner would such a temptation present itself than I would smother it. The effect was of snuffing out a candle, two candles, a row of twenty, until the lens pulled back to reveal an entire votive stand exhaling a hundred thin lines of smoke as a terraced offering before the shrine. In this religion hidden lights had been declared superior to those that glared. Somewhere I was storing up merit, accumulating the credit I'd need to buy, one day, the salvation I longed for. Until then (and it was a reckoning that could be forestalled indefinitely, that I preferred putting off) I'd live in that happiest of all conditions: the long but seemingly prosperous courtship. It was a series of tests, ever more arduous, even perverse. For instance, I was required to deny my love in order to prove it. — Edmund White

She sat on her porch those first nights, wrapped in the brackish tidal air. The future's breeze split across her face and joined up again behind her. She felt herself a spinster whose sudden new suitor must be either sadistic, blind, or a confused fortune hunter. She'd read all the cautionary fairy tales and knew the one inevitable outcome. Still, she consented to this courtship, and even decided to court it back. — Richard Powers

No matter where we are today or what mistakes we've made in the past, He has given us everything we need to glorify Him right now. — Joshua Harris

Giving words [is] an act of lovers. — Francois Rabelais

The Gerat Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog Eater. — Mike Harding

Let your children see you kiss. Let them see you embrace. Let them overhear your teasing, your gentle rebukes, even your well-intentioned jealousy. Domestic courtship reinforces the notion that people are together because they want to be together, not because it is the decent, practical thing to do. — Robin R. Meyers

You're like a half-tamed creature, still shy of the bridle. 'Except you enthrall me, never shall be free.' But freedom is an illusion, anyway. — Nenia Campbell

Although, we might want to come up with a different story to tell our children. I don't think 'Father ravished Mummy against a wall so he had to marry her' is exactly the kind of lesson in courtship we want to impart. — Monica McCarty

Given that Liam had missed a courtship lasting several years and realized he was in a relationship only when he had woken up chained to a wall, he could very well believe someone else might learn the Rownt culture more quickly than he had. — Lyn Gala

I only regret that it came too soon. I
I would have wanted to
to court your first. To take you driving, with a chaperon." (Jem)
"A chaperon?" (Tessa)
"To tell you my feelings first, before I showed them. To write poetry for you
" (Jem)
"You don't even like poetry," (Tessa)
"No. But you make me want to write it. Does that not count for anything?" (Jem) — Cassandra Clare

I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady-because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her-because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible. — Charlotte Bronte

Marriage is simply an economic necessity, and so there are no elaborate courtship displays or marriage celebrations among the Eskimo. — Peter Farb

Isaac's son Jacob has a daughter, Dinah. Dinah is kidnapped and raped - apparently a customary form of courtship at the time, since the rapist's family then offers to purchase her from her own family as a wife for the rapist. Dinah's brothers explain that an important moral principle stands in the way of this transaction: the rapist is uncircumcised. So they make a counteroffer: if all the men in the rapist's hometown cut off their foreskins, Dinah will be theirs. While the men are incapacitated with bleeding penises, the brothers invade the city, plunder and destroy it, massacre the men, and carry off the women and children. When Jacob worries that neighboring tribes may attack them in revenge, his sons explain that it was worth the risk: "Should our sister be treated like a whore?" 13 Soon afterward they reiterate their commitment to family values by selling their brother Joseph into slavery. — Steven Pinker

Admit only your victories until you have hooked their interest, then you draw them closer and admit the sort of failings that reflect well on a fellow, sentimental failings: that was the theory of courtship the young master had formulated... — Claire Robertson

Women who do not play hard to get are hard to get. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. — Johnny Cash

It
learns quickly what sort of courtship it is going to be.
Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from
seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably
there, it begins to show itself - soon it begins to arrive
when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and
are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly,
or it will not appear at all.
Why should it? It can wait. It can stay silent a lifetime.
Who knows anyway what it is, that wild, silky part
of ourselves without which no poem can live? — Mary Oliver

Love has no spear but conquers hearts. — Matshona Dhliwayo

On consideration, it is not surprising that Darwin's finches should recognize their own kind primarily by beak characters. The beak is the only prominent specific distinction, and it features conspicuously both in attacking behaviour, when the birds face each other and grip beaks, and also in courtship, when food is passed from the beak of the male to the beak of the female. Hence though the beak differences are primarily correlated with differences in food, secondarily they serve as specific recognition marks, and the birds have evolved behaviour patterns to this end. — David Lack

There is too little courtship in the world. — Vernon Lee

This was different. He didn't want a woman. He wanted her. And he supposed that if he had to spend the afternoon being strange, sad, and disfigured just to be in her company, it would be well worth it.
Then he remembered the wart.
He turned to Miss Wynter and said firmly, "I am not getting a wart."
Really, a man had to draw the line somewhere. — Julia Quinn

All is fair in love and war; and if this is not love, it was the usual thing that stands as a counterpart for it. — Anthony Trollope

So much of courtship is the unspoken. — Megan McCafferty

The bedfellows politics made are never strange. It only seems that way to those who have not watched the courtship. — Marcel Achard

In the interest of ultimate honesty," Celine cut in, "I'm pretty sure that everyone present would appreciate it if you two got a room."
"I wouldn't," Dean grumbled.
"I am unbothered by displays of physical and emotional intimacy," Sloane volunteered. "The nuances and statistics underlying courtship behavior are quite fascinating."
The edges of Celine's lips quirked upward as she met Sloane's gaze. "You don't say."
Sloane frowned. "I just did. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Amelia took a deep breath. "What you didn't mention, Mr. Rohan, was that if a Roma steals a woman from her bed according to tradition, it is with the purpose of marriage in mind. And the so-called stealing is prearranged and encouraged by the bride-to-be."
Cam gave her a charming smile, deliberately dispelling the tension. "It lacks subtlety, but it hastens the proceedings considerably, doesn't it? No asking for the father's permission, no banns, no prolonged betrothal. Very efficient, a Romany courtship. — Lisa Kleypas

Are they trained to treat everyone as a servant?'
'Probably. That doesn't make you into one, — Sherwood Smith

Only during courtship might a woman briefly gain the upper hand, as both Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour did, but woe betide her if she did not quickly learn to conform once the wedding-ring was on her finger. The — Alison Weir

I was gushing and I knew it. I surprised myself with my eagerness to please, felt myself saying too much, explaining too much, overinvolved and overexcited in the way you are when you're a kid and you think you've found a soul mate in the new boy down the street and you feel yourself drawn by the force of the courtship and so act as you don't normally do and a lot more openly than you may even want to. — Philip Roth

I can't count the men who have tried to seduce me away from my virtue by teaching me how to defend it. — Patrick Rothfuss

My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child. — Karen Joy Fowler

But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. — William Shakespeare

Your courtship method of arrogance self-loathing, and then telling me how beautiful other girls are is pretty unique," said Kami. "I like it. I don't know what that says about me. — Sarah Rees Brennan

The ancient liturgy, with its poignant symbols and innumerable subtleties, is a prolonged courtship of the soul, enticing and drawing it onwards, leading it along a path to the mystical marriage, the wedding feast of heaven. — Peter Kwasniewski

Fogs are like dreams that feed the soul, and without their mysterious embrace, childhood, courtship, poetry and the composition of music become all the more difficult. — Michael Leunig

Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. — Jane Austen

There are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship, which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. — George Eliot

Courtship, properly understood, is the process whereby both the male and the female are brought into that state of sexual tumescence which is a more or less necessary condition for sexual intercourse. The play of courtship cannot, therefore, be considered to be definitely brought to an end by the ceremony of marriage; it may more properly be regarded as the natural preliminary to every act of coitus. — Havelock Ellis

Several years ago, I was creating a Christmas present for the family, a self-published cookbook featuring recipes my grandmother had collected and created over decades. While interviewing her for the biographical section, she began to talk about her courtship with my late grandfather. — Kristina McMorris

I should have gone back to my book on Alpha Males and their instincts: how a dominant leader, when it has subjugated its subordinate mate to the point of rebellion, will turn back to the ploys it used for its initial sexual courtship. — Anonymous

Sexual behavior in our species goes through three characteristic phases: pair formation, precopulatory activity, and copulation, usually but not always in that order. The pair-formation stage, usually referred to as courtship, is remarkably prolonged by animal standards. — Desmond Morris

It was too small a step,
somehow, too puny a thing to settle for after having lost so
much. So the courtship continued, and the more Tom came to
despise his job, the more stubbornly he defended his own inertia;
and the more inert he became, the more he despised himself. — Paul Auster

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves. — O. Henry

All I really need," he continued, "is for you to act as a deterrent."
"A deterrent?" she choked out.
"A human shield, if you will."
"What?"
"I cannot be left alone with that woman," he said, and he felt no remorse at the low desperation in his voice. "Please, if you have any care for your fellow man."
Her lips clamped together in a suspicious line. "I'm not certain what I get out of the equation."
"You mean besides the joy of my delightful company?"
"Yes," she said, with an impressive lack of inflection, "besides that. — Julia Quinn

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig
and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. — William Shakespeare

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect. — Criss Jami

Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.
"What more do you want? He's got honey and asks for a spoon! Go away, your hands are harder than iron. And you smell of smoke. I suppose you've made me all sooty. — Nikolai Gogol

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like the state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. — George Bernard Shaw

It strikes me as horribly ironic that you apparently need a Fairy Godmother to properly manage your courtship of a Fairy Godmother. — Jenniffer Wardell

As the tide of feminism that crested two decades ago recedes and the old advance-and-retreat games of courtship return, "Pride & Prejudice" speaks wistfully to the moment. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are tantalizing early prototypes for a Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy ideal of lovers as brainy, passionate sparring partners. That the world teems with fantasies of Mr. Darcy and his ilk there is no doubt. How many of his type are to be found outside the pages of a novel, however, is another matter. — Stephen Holden

There is proverbially a mystery among most men of new wealth, how they made their first ten thousand; it is the qualities they showed then, before they became bullies, when every man was someone to be placated, when only hope sustained them and they could count on nothing from the world but what could be charmed from it, that make them, if they survive their triumph, successful with women. — Evelyn Waugh

School. I never tried to talk a student into coming to UCLA. I tried to show him what was there and what to expect, and I never told him he was going to play; I told him he would have the opportunity to play, and if he was good enough, then he'd be able to. Rosy forecasts during the "courtship" of a player can only lead to disappointment and distrust if anything fails to meet that student's expectations. — John Wooden

While Norah described to me her plans for carpets and curtains, or showed me the sample of bedspread material she had hung over a chair to see if she could live with it. When I began to know her, I wondered if their courtship had been, for her, something of the same
my brother draped over a chair for the statutory length of time, to see if she could live with him. In that case she might have noticed that he did not really go with the surroundings; perhaps she did see this, but knew that he would fade to a better match. — Shirley Hazzard

I'm wide open to getting married, but actors are not easy people to date. You end up sharing that person with this other mistress that is their career. I very much like the traditional courtship method of making a date. That's what they do in normal places, but Hollywood's not normal. — Seth MacFarlane

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. — Nick Harkaway

Leslie, don't you believe that I know who you will marry, and that I'm capable of leading you to that right man someday? — Leslie Ludy

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here's how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man's chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was. — Elizabeth Gilbert

One way to demonstrate courtship as a matter of course in an established relationship is to remember that courtship is the act of trying to persuade someone to choose you - by demonstrating that you've chosen them. If you look at each day of your relationship as another opportunity to choose to be with the person you're with, you'll display those feelings of affection in your actions and your words - and you'll refrain from taking that person's presence for granted. — Sarah Wendell

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing — William Shakespeare

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. — William Shakespeare

Take care lest perchance you fall into the mistake of thinking to gain more by being merciful than by being just; for to pardon him too easily that has transgressed is to wrong him that transgresses not. — Baldassare Castiglione

There was no need for courtship; they simply met one day and were together after that. — Meg Rosoff

You must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. — Benjamin Disraeli

Either you have a rival or you don't. If you have one, you must please in order to be preferred to him, and if you don't you must still please-in order to avoid having one. — Pierre Choderlos De Laclos

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand
they only. Know this at last. — Charlotte Bronte

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. — Alexander Pope

There is no such thing as biblical dating. If you're dating, I don't care who you're dating, you're out of God's will. If you're a young man and you're dating, you're out of God's will. Period. You can come talk to me about it later, you can be mad if you want. But that's just the truth. There's no such thing as recreational dating. There is biblical courtship, there is no recreational dating. — Paul Washer

Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down. — Drew Barrymore

The natural world is full of females falling hard for stupid male display behavior, including bright feathers, big antlers, and bombastic courtship rituals. — Richard Conniff

You might be surrounded by clouds, but you'll be like sunshine to me. — Richelle Mead

They say sweethearts and squabbles are like flowers and rain. Takes both to make it springtime. — Pamela Morsi

Wisdom bought with a tremendous price, Jane. You know what William and I suffered. I suppose the benefit to our tumultuous courtship was the trial-by-fire aspect of it all.We learned our lessons via grievous methods, but we did learn them. — Sharon Lathan

God has put into the heart of man love and the boldness to sue, and into the heart of woman fear and the courage to refuse. — Margaret Of Valois

Life is a matter of courtship and wooing, flirting and chatting. — Carolyn See

When you least expect it is when the person you always dreamt of will finally show up. — Shannon L. Alder

I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight - that, in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin. — George Eliot

That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don't meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn't be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read. — Roxane Gay

Courtship brings out the best. Marriage brings out the rest. — Cullen Hightower

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice
they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar. — Henry H. Neff

Vin looked down at the handkerchief. Whena nobleman wants to court a lady seriously, he gives her a handkerchief. — Brandon Sanderson

If this was cynical, then we must allow that all courtship is cynical. — Zoe Heller