ADULTERY QUOTES II
quotations about adultery
Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery! No, the wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14). The virtues of purity are the basis of the domestic relations, and as the family is the foundation of human society, the class of duties here involved is second only to those which preserve man's existence. Hence it is that, immediately following the commandment which declares the sacredness of human life, there is that precept that is a hedge about the highest relationship of creaturehood, thus safeguarding the holy function of the procreation of life. Nothing is more essential for the social order than that the relationship upon which all others are subsequently based should be jealously protected against every form of attack. The commandment is a simple, unqualified, irrevocable negative: "thou shalt not." No argument is used, no reason is given, because none is required. This sin is so destructive and damning that the mere mention of its name is, in itself, sufficient cause for this stern forbidding.
PAUL TAULBEE
The Hazard Herald, March 1, 2016
Physical adultery is grounds for divorce; mental adultery isn't. Physical adultery defiles one's body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, in a way mental adultery doesn't. And physical adultery is something many have avoided, but mental adultery is something no one has totally avoided.
MARK MITCHELL
Ten: How the Commandments Set Us Free
Fidelity is for phonographs.
SAUL BELLOW
Humboldt's Gift
Criminal prosecutions for adultery are rare, but they should be rarer still, given the arbitrary and idiosyncratic nature in which prohibitions are enforced, and the invasions of privacy that they entail. In the states that make adultery a crime, the majority classify it as a misdemeanor, but some punish it as a felony. Penalties range from a ten-dollar fine (Maryland) to life imprisonment (Michigan).
DEBORAH L. RHODE
"Your affair might be illegal", Salon, April 2, 2016
Adultery is not a crime, it's an amusement.
KATHLEEN WINSOR
Forever Amber
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
EXODUS 20:14
The crime of adultery is of an exceedingly aggravated nature, aside from being a violation of the law of chastity it is also a violation of a most solemn contract; the misery which it inflicts upon parents and children, relatives and friends, the total annihilation of domestic happiness, and the total disruption of parental and filial ties which it necessarily produces, mark it for one of the basest forms of human atrocity.
FRANCIS WAYLAND
The Elements of Moral Science
What is adultery, at its heart, once you get past the sex part? It's fundamentally the human will to eat the forbidden fruit, to choose what one wants instead of what God wants and to tear apart what God has joined together. There's a reason that adultery was a capital offense in the Old Testament: God hates it.
CHARLES ERLANDSON
"Lust and Adultery", Patheos, September 16, 2016
My own feeling is that if adultery is wickedness then so is food. Both make me feel so much better afterward.
KURT VONNEGUT
Hocus Pocus
Men are always hanging around the florist in droves to buy flowers for each other's wives. The only thing worse than treachery is tackiness.
BAUVARD
The Prince of Plungers
It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patchings to repair great rents in the quotidian.
JOHN UPDIKE
Couples
Adultery is an image of hell.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
The Apocalypse Explained
Where there's Marriage without Love, there will be Love without Marriage.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734
Under the hypothesis that adultery is a virtual dissolution of the conjugal union, it will not be denied, that being committed by the one party, it may be concealed from the other, and form no impediment to their continued cohabitation.
HECTOR DAVIES MORGAN
The Doctrine and Law of Marriage, Adultery, and Divorce
Adultery ... is a crime admitting of no extenuation, and incapable of condonement by the morally upright.
PHELPS O. BROWN
The Complete Herbalist
The first breath of adultery is the freest; after it, constraints aping marriage develop.
JOHN UPDIKE
Couples
A hundred years ago Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter was given an A for adultery; today she would rate no better than a C-plus.
PETER DE VRIES
I Hear America Swinging
I'll show you a lucky man--his secretary's lipstick is the same color as his wife's!
MILTON BERLE
Milton Berle's Private Joke File
Wife lending, known as wife hospitality, is customary among several Inuit (Eskimo) peoples. This form of adultery stems from their concept of kinship. If a husband is eager to cement his ties with a hunting companion, he may offer the sexual services of his wife--but only with her permission. If all agree, she copulates with this business partner for several days or even weeks. Women also offer sex to visitors and strangers. But Inuit women see these extramarital couplings as precious offerings of everlasting kinship, not as social indiscretions.
HELEN E. FISHER
Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray