14 Short Italian Love Quotes With English Translation, From Dante to Modugno

Italian has two ways to say "I love you", and they are not interchangeable. Ti amo is the one for a partner: you say it to the person you are in love with, and almost never to a friend or a parent. Ti voglio bene (literally "I want good for you") is warmer and wider. It is what you say to your mother, your best friend, your children, and also to a partner on an ordinary Tuesday. That difference is a good guide to the whole language of love in Italian, which is short, exact, and careful about who it is speaking to.

The 14 short lines below come from seven centuries of Italian: two poets of the 1200s and 1300s, a Renaissance prince's carnival song, a court play, a poem by Leopardi, two hit songs by Domenico Modugno, and three proverbs. Each one is given in its original wording, checked against the text on Wikisource or Wikiquote, with a literal English translation (ours) and a note on where it comes from and what it suits. They are grouped by what you want to say, so you can go straight to the card you are writing.

Ti amo, ti voglio bene, or amore mio? Six phrases to get right first

These are everyday phrases, not quotations, so they need no author. Getting them right matters more than any poem, because a wrong ending (caro for a woman, cara for a man) is the mistake an Italian reader notices first.

For an anniversary card

Anniversaries suit lines that look back: a date remembered, a feeling that has lasted. Petrarch is the poet for this, since he counted the years of his love for Laura in his poems, and dated the first time he saw her to 6 April 1327, in a church in Avignon.

Benedetto sia 'l giorno, e 'l mese, e l'anno.

— Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta), sonnet 61, 14th century

"Blessed be the day, and the month, and the year." The sonnet goes on to bless the season, the hour, the very instant and the place where he was "caught" by two beautiful eyes, then the first sweet pain, and even the arrows of Love. Even the sighs and tears get blessed. It is a list of blessings, and that is why it works on a card: copy the first line, then add your own date underneath.

Piagha per allentar d'arco non sana.

— Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere, sonnet 90 ("Erano i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi"), 14th century

"A wound does not heal because the bow is unstrung." The sonnet remembers Laura's golden hair loosened in the breeze, and admits that her eyes are no longer as bright as they were. The last line is his answer: the arrow hit long ago, and it does not matter that the archer has put the bow down. For a long marriage, it is one of the most honest compliments in Italian, because it says I still love you without pretending that nothing has changed.

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Chi può cambiar l'amore, l'amore mio per te?

— Domenico Modugno, "Dio, come ti amo", 1966

"Who can change love, my love for you?" Modugno won the Sanremo festival in 1966 with this song. The verse before it asks who can stop the river running to the sea, or the swallows flying toward the sun, so the question is meant to be impossible to answer. It suits a card for him as well as for her, and it is short enough to write inside a ring box or on the back of a photo. (The song is still under copyright, so quote a line, not the lyric.)

Amor nuovo va e viene, amor vecchio si mantiene.

— Traditional Italian proverb (listed in it.wikiquote's Proverbi italiani)

"New love comes and goes, old love holds." The rhyme (viene / mantiene) is what makes it stick. It is the right tone for a silver or golden anniversary, or a toast by a grown child to their parents: affectionate, a little teasing toward the young, and true.

When you are far apart

Distance runs through Italian song and proverb. For full letters to send across the miles, see our guide to long distance love letters; the three lines below are short enough for a text or a postcard.

La lontananza sai, è come il vento / spegne i fuochi piccoli, ma / accende quelli grandi.

— Domenico Modugno, "La lontananza", 1970

"Distance, you know, is like the wind: it puts out the small fires, but it lights the big ones." Modugno wrote the song with Enrica Bonaccorti, then a young actress and later a well-known TV presenter, and he said the idea came from a letter her boyfriend had written to her, which she read to him. The image is older still. In 1678 La Rochefoucauld wrote that absence weakens small passions and strengthens great ones, "as the wind blows out candles and fans a fire" (maxim 276; we give the French on our page of French love quotes). Wikiquote also notes a similar line by the French writer Roger de Bussy-Rabutin. Send it when the distance is hard but the relationship is strong.

Lontano dagli occhi, lontano dal cuore.

— Traditional Italian proverb (listed in it.wikiquote's Proverbi italiani)

"Far from the eyes, far from the heart": the Italian version of "out of sight, out of mind". On its own it is a warning, so don't send it bare. It works as the first half of a message that proves it wrong: Dicono "lontano dagli occhi, lontano dal cuore." Non con te. ("They say far from the eyes, far from the heart. Not with you.")

Nessun maggior dolore / che ricordarsi del tempo felice / ne la miseria.

— Dante Alighieri, Inferno, canto V, lines 121–123, early 14th century

"There is no greater sorrow than to remember the happy time in misery." Francesca da Rimini says it to Dante in the circle of the lovers, just before she tells how she and Paolo fell in love while reading the story of Lancelot. It is a sad line, and it belongs in a sad moment: a letter after a separation, or a note to someone missing a partner who has died. It is not a line for a happy card, however beautiful it sounds.

For a first confession

The lines in this group are about the moment love arrives. Two of them come from the same short stretch of Italian poetry, because Dante learned his idea of love from the older poet Guido Guinizzelli, whom he calls "my father" in Purgatorio XXVI.

Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore / come l'ausello in selva a la verdura.

— Guido Guinizzelli, canzone Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore, before 1276

"Love always returns to the noble heart, as the bird in the wood returns to the green." Guinizzelli, a judge from Bologna who died in exile around 1276, wrote the canzone that became the founding text of the dolce stil novo, the "sweet new style" of Dante's generation. Its claim is that love and a gentle heart are born together, the way light comes with the sun. As a confession it says: it was natural, I couldn't help it, and it says it very kindly.

Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona.

— Dante Alighieri, Inferno, canto V, line 103, early 14th century

"Love, which lets no one who is loved off from loving back." Francesca says this three lines after an echo of Guinizzelli ("Amor, ch'al cor gentil ratto s'apprende", "Love, which is quickly kindled in a gentle heart"). The idea is that love, once given, demands an answer. It is one of the best-known love lines in Italian, and the boldest for a first confession, since it quietly tells the other person that they are now obliged. Use it when you are fairly sure of the reply.

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Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra; / [...] et nulla stringo, et tutto 'l mondo abbraccio.

— Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere, sonnet 134, 14th century

"I find no peace, and have no means to make war; [...] I hold nothing, and I embrace the whole world." The whole sonnet is a list of opposites (I fear and hope, I burn and am ice), and poets across Europe imitated it for centuries. It is ideal for a crush: it describes the confusion of new love without asking for anything yet. The spelling et and ò is Petrarch's; modern Italian would write e and ho.

Al cuor non si comanda.

— Traditional Italian proverb (listed in it.wikiquote's Proverbi italiani)

"The heart cannot be commanded." Italians use it to explain any love that makes no sense on paper, and it is a gentle way to begin a message that may surprise someone: it admits the feeling and takes the blame off both of you. It is also known in the form al cuore non si comanda.

To say "don't wait"

Italian Renaissance poetry has a whole tradition of lines that urge lovers not to put off love, because time is short. These three are for a proposal, an invitation, or a nudge to someone who keeps hesitating.

Quant'è bella giovinezza, / che si fugge tuttavia! / Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: / di doman non c'è certezza.

— Lorenzo de' Medici, "Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna" (Canzona di Bacco), 1490

"How beautiful youth is, which flies away all the same! Whoever wants to be happy, let them be: there is no certainty about tomorrow." Lorenzo, ruler of Florence, wrote it as a carnival song for the Florence carnival of 1490, to be sung in the streets with a float of Bacchus and Ariadne. The last two lines are the ones people quote, and they make a perfect invitation: to dinner, to a trip, to a yes.

Amiam, che 'l Sol si muore, e poi rinasce.

— Torquato Tasso, Aminta, chorus to Act I, 1573

"Let us love: the sun dies, and then is born again." Tasso wrote Aminta, a pastoral play, for the court at Ferrara in 1573. The chorus mourns a lost golden age and ends with this call to love, which goes on: the sun returns, but for us "its brief light hides" and sleep brings "eternal night". Readers of Latin will hear Catullus 5 ("suns can set and return"). On a card, the first half alone is enough.

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Fratelli, a un tempo stesso, Amore e Morte / ingenerò la sorte.

— Giacomo Leopardi, "Amore e morte", Canti, 1835 edition

"Brothers, at one and the same time, fate gave birth to Love and Death." The poem continues: "nothing so beautiful does the world hold down here, nor do the stars." Leopardi is not saying love is deadly; he is saying the two brothers are the most beautiful things there are, and both make life feel urgent. It is a serious line for a serious letter, and best for someone who reads poetry.

Copying Italian onto a card without mistakes

• Keep the old apostrophes. In 'l giorno and che 'l Sol, the apostrophe stands for the missing i of il ("the"). Use a curly apostrophe (’), not a left quote mark (‘), which is the mistake phone keyboards often make.
• Watch the accents. è means "is"; e means "and". Quant'è bella without the accent turns into nonsense.
• Don't modernise the poets. Petrarch's et and ò and Guinizzelli's rempaira are how the texts are printed. If a correction tool flags them, ignore it.
• Put the English underneath, in smaller letters. Most people who receive an Italian card cannot read Italian fluently. One line of Italian and one of English is the classic layout.
• Add one sentence of your own. A quote is the opening, not the message. Something like "Petrarch blessed the day; I bless 14 June 2019" turns a poem into a letter. Our guide on how to write a love letter covers the rest.

Popular "Italian love quotes" we left out

This page replaced an older list on the same URL, and several of its lines did not survive checking. They also circulate widely, so here is what we found.

Questions about Italian love quotes

What is the most famous Italian love quote?

Probably Dante's "Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona" ("Love, which lets no one who is loved off from loving back"), from Inferno canto V, spoken by Francesca da Rimini. It is one of the best-known lines of the Divine Comedy, and seven centuries old.

Should I write "ti amo" or "ti voglio bene" in a card?

For a partner, either works: ti amo is the romantic declaration, ti voglio bene the everyday tenderness. For anyone else (a parent, a friend, a child), write ti voglio bene. Ti amo to a friend sounds like a confession.

How do you say "my love" in Italian?

Amore mio, or simply amore. It is the same for a man or a woman. Tesoro ("treasure") is the other common endearment, and it also does not change with gender.

One last fact for the card: when Petrarch blessed "the day, and the month, and the year", he had a real date in mind. On the flyleaf of his own copy of Virgil, now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, he wrote that he first saw Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire in Avignon on 6 April 1327, and that she died on 6 April 1348, the same day of the year, at the same early hour. He went on writing poems about her until his own death in 1374.