C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Bachelor
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Shakespeare.
I have no wife or children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men’s fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene.
Burton.
A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.
La Bruyère.