Funny Italian Love Quotes: 14 Proverbs and Lines You Can Trace, With Translations

In 1853 the Florence publisher Le Monnier printed a fat book of Tuscan proverbs that the poet Giuseppe Giusti had been collecting until his death in 1850, finished and edited by his friend Gino Capponi. Its chapters on love and on "Donna, Matrimonio" are some of the funniest pages in nineteenth-century Italian, and most of the "funny Italian love quotes" that circulate online without a source are either softened versions of those proverbs or lines nobody can trace at all. Below are 14 funny Italian love quotes that can be traced: eleven proverbs found in that 1853 edition and three lines by Machiavelli, Verga and Massimo Troisi. Each comes with the Italian, a literal English translation and the place where you can check it. After them is a short list of popular lines that turned out to be misattributed or unsourced, and a guide to using one in a wedding toast or card without starting a family argument.

A note on the translations: they are our own and deliberately literal, so you can see how the joke is built. The proverbs come from the scanned first edition on the Internet Archive (Raccolta di proverbi toscani, 1853), where you can search any word and see the printed page.

Love itself: a sugared pill, a cough and a war you win by running

Giusti's "Amore" chapter opens with the usual praise and then turns sly. These three are the ones that still get a laugh at an Italian table.

Amore è una pillola inzuccherata." (Love is a sugar-coated pill.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, Raccolta di proverbi toscani, 1853, chapter "Amore", p. 41

The joke is in what the sugar hides. A pill is medicine, so it is good for you and it tastes of nothing you would choose, and the coating only lasts until the first bite. The proverb is short enough for a card and gentle enough that nobody at the wedding will take offence: write it under a photo of the couple's first date and let the guests decide which part is the sugar.

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Amore e tosse non si nascondono." (Love and a cough cannot be hidden.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Amore", p. 41

The 1853 text adds a variant in brackets: "Amore, sonno e rogna", love, sleepiness and scabies. That is the version Italians quote when they want the laugh, because it puts falling in love on the same level as an itch you can't stop scratching. Versions online often read "Amore, tosse e rogna", but that exact form does not appear in Giusti, so quote his. It suits the friend who swore for months that they were "just colleagues".

Nella guerra d'amor vince chi fugge." (In the war of love, the one who runs away wins.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Amore", p. 44

Today it is usually shortened to "In amore vince chi fugge", and it is often credited to Napoleon. He did use the idea, but as something everyone already knew. In the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, Las Cases records him asking: "Qui ne sait que la seule victoire contre l'amour, c'est la fuite ?" ("Who does not know that the only victory over love is flight?") (text on Wikisource). Giusti prints a rhyming second half that hardly anyone quotes: "e chi non fugge, strugge" ("and whoever doesn't run, wastes away"). It works as a teasing line for a couple where one partner did the chasing for years.

Choosing a spouse, the Tuscan way

The "Donna, Matrimonio" chapter of the 1853 book is written from the husband's side of the table, in the voice of a farming society that bought livestock and arranged dowries. That is part of the comedy now, and it is also why the lines below need a light hand in a toast (more on that further down).

Donne e buoi de' paesi tuoi." (Women and oxen from your own villages.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 101

The modern form is "Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi" (wife and oxen from your own villages), the wording given in the Treccani dictionary entry for "bue". The advice is to marry someone who shares your customs, since you already know what you are getting. At a wedding it gets its biggest laugh when the couple did exactly the opposite: a bride from Bari and a groom from Minnesota, say.

Comprar cavalli e tor moglie; serra gli occhi, e raccomandati a Dio." (Buying horses and taking a wife: shut your eyes and commend yourself to God.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 101

"Tor" is the old Tuscan short form of "togliere", to take. The proverb admits that both purchases are a gamble no amount of inspection can remove. The wise move is to close your eyes and pray. It is a good line for the groom's own speech, because it is aimed at himself and not at the bride.

Dov'entra dote, esce libertà." (Where the dowry comes in, freedom goes out.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 101

Giusti prints it as the partner of "Gran dote, gran baldezza" (big dowry, big boldness). A wife who brought a large dowry could hold her head high, and the husband who took the money lost his room to argue. Dowries are gone, but the second half still fits any couple merging bank accounts, which is why it lands well at an engagement party.

Pigliar moglie, suona bene e poi sa male." (Taking a wife sounds good and then tastes bad.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 104

The pun is on "suona bene" (sounds good) against "sa male" (tastes bad, from "sapere", to taste). It is the bluntest line on this page, and best kept for an old friend's stag night or a fortieth anniversary, where the couple have long since proved it wrong.

The first year and the long haul

Once the wedding is over, the proverbs turn to money, health, patience and the odd suggestion that the priesthood might have been easier.

Chi si marita per amore, di notte ha piacere, e di giorno ha dolore." (Whoever marries for love has pleasure by night and sorrow by day.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 99

This one is older than Giusti. John Florio, the Anglo-Italian teacher who later translated Montaigne, printed almost the same rhyme in his proverb collection Giardino di ricreatione of 1591: "Chi si marita per amore, di notte ha piacer, di giorno dolore" (Wikisource text). Some websites call it a Campanian saying, but both printed sources point to Tuscany and the wider Italian stock. It is cheeky rather than crude, so it can go in a card for a couple who married young.

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Il prim'anno che l'uomo piglia moglie, o s'ammala o s'indebita." (In the first year a man takes a wife, he either falls ill or falls into debt.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 101

Anyone who has paid for a wedding and a flat in the same twelve months will recognise it. It makes a good first-anniversary card ("Neither ill nor in debt: congratulations"), because by then the couple can laugh at having survived the year.

Chi prende una moglie, merita una corona di pazienza; chi ne prende due, merita una corona di pazzia." (Whoever takes one wife deserves a crown of patience; whoever takes two deserves a crown of madness.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Donna, Matrimonio", p. 99

The joke turns on the near-rhyme of "pazienza" and "pazzia". Read it as being about marrying a second time, not about two wives at once: the first marriage earns sympathy, the second earns a raised eyebrow. Use it carefully at a second wedding, and only if the couple are known to joke about it first.

Chi vuole aver bene un dì, faccia un buon pasto; chi una settimana, ammazzi il porco; chi un mese, pigli moglie; chi tutta la vita, si faccia prete." (Who wants to be happy for a day, let him have a good meal; for a week, let him kill the pig; for a month, let him take a wife; for his whole life, let him become a priest.)

— Tuscan proverb, Giusti and Capponi, 1853, "Regole varie", p. 329

This is the longest proverb here and the best for a speech, because it builds like a joke with a punchline. Killing the pig meant a week of sausages and feasting in a farm household. The priest was the only man in the village with no wife, no children and no in-laws. Read it slowly in Italian, give the translation, then add your own last line about why the groom chose the month and stayed for the lifetime.

Three Italian writers who said it first

Italian literature has its own tradition of jokes about marriage, from Renaissance Florence to Neapolitan cinema. These three lines come from works you can read today.

Andando infinite anime di quelli miseri mortali... allo Inferno, tutte o la maggior parte si dolevono, non per altro che per aver tolta moglie." (Countless souls of wretched mortals were going to Hell, and all or most of them complained that it was for no other reason than having taken a wife.)

— Niccolò Machiavelli, Favola di Belfagor arcidiavolo, written c. 1518–1527, printed 1549

This is the opening of Machiavelli's comic tale (full text on Wikisource). The judges of Hell are puzzled by so many husbands blaming their wives, so they send the archdevil Belfagor to Florence to marry and report back. His wife's spending and her family wear him down so badly that, by the end, he would rather go back to Hell than stay with her. Retell the plot in two sentences for a toast; the long Italian sentence is better on a card than out loud.

Il matrimonio è come una trappola di topi; quelli che son dentro vorrebbero uscirne, e gli altri ci girano intorno per entrarvi." (Marriage is like a mousetrap: those inside would like to get out, and the others circle around it to get in.)

— Giovanni Verga, I Malavoglia, 1881, chapter XV

In Verga's novel of a Sicilian fishing family the line belongs to padron Fortunato Cipolla, one of the village elders, said while the men gossip in the square (chapter XV on Wikisource). A few pages later comes the punchline Verga built in: the village hears that padron Fortunato himself is getting married, and zio Crocifisso, the village moneylender he had been talking to, grumbles, "E mi diceva che il matrimonio è come una trappola di topi!" ("And he told me marriage was like a mousetrap!"). Tell both halves and the quote becomes a story about someone who walked into the trap on purpose, which suits any groom who used to swear he would never marry.

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Io non è che so' contrario al matrimonio... io credo che in particolare un uomo e una donna siano le persone meno adatte a sposarsi tra di loro." (It's not that I'm against marriage... I just think that a man and a woman, in particular, are the people least suited to marrying each other.)

— Massimo Troisi as Tommaso, Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse, 1991

Troisi directed and starred in this film about a Neapolitan engagement that falls apart as the wedding gets closer. The full line, as transcribed on Italian Wikiquote, starts with a flustered "Mamma mia... io guarda..." and ends with "troppo diversi" (too different). The ellipses above mark where we trimmed it. The humour depends on Troisi's hesitant Neapolitan delivery, so in a speech it helps to say that it comes from the film; Italian guests will hear his voice.

Popular "Italian" lines that don't hold up

We checked the lines most often shared as funny Italian love quotes against the 1853 and 1911 editions of Giusti, Wikiquote and the works they are credited to. These six did not pass. If one is already on your wedding programme, the right-hand column tells you what to put instead.

Quote sites in every language have the same problem. Our longer guide to misattributed love quotes traces sixteen famous English lines in the same way.

How to use a funny Italian line in a toast or card

Most of these proverbs joke about wives, so the person speaking matters more than the line. The safe rule is to joke about yourself, about marriage in general or about how long the couple held out, and never about the bride. This table matches lines to the people who can say them.

Some practical tips:

• Say the Italian first, then translate. The rhythm is the joke ("suona bene… sa male", "pazienza… pazzia"), and Italian-speaking guests will laugh a beat before everyone else, which helps you.
• Name the source in half a sentence. "As a Tuscan proverb from 1853 puts it…" sounds better than "as they say in Italy", and it is true.
• Turn the cynical line into a compliment. End on why this couple are the exception.
• Keep the blunt ones out of the ceremony. "Pigliar moglie…" and "corona di pazzia" belong at the stag party, the rehearsal dinner or a long-married couple's anniversary.

Here is an example toast our editors wrote to show the shape. Swap in your own names and details:

"There's a Tuscan proverb from 1853: chi vuole aver bene un dì, faccia un buon pasto… chi un mese, pigli moglie; chi tutta la vita, si faccia prete. If you want to be happy for a day, eat well… for a month, get married; for a lifetime, become a priest. [Name], we have all seen you eat, and we know the priesthood was never an option. So we're very glad you took the month, and we're betting on [Name] to make it a lifetime. Alla salute!"

If the occasion calls for something sincere rather than funny, our collection of Italian quotes for love and marriage has ceremony readings, and these short Italian love quotes with translations, from Dante to Modugno, fit inside a ring box card. For English-language humour, see funny love quotes for him and who really said them.

Questions about funny Italian love sayings

What is a fun Italian phrase about love?

"Amore è una pillola inzuccherata" (love is a sugar-coated pill) is short, easy to pronounce and genuinely old: it is printed in Giusti's Raccolta di proverbi toscani of 1853. For something longer that builds to a punchline, use "Chi vuole aver bene un dì…", which ends with becoming a priest.

Is "moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi" offensive?

It comes from a time when marriages were arranged around land and livestock, so taken literally it is dated. Italians mostly use it as a teasing comment about marrying someone from far away. At a wedding it works best when the couple clearly broke the rule, and best of all when a family member says it with affection.

Did Napoleon say "in amore vince chi fugge"?

Not as its author. The Tuscan proverb "Nella guerra d'amor vince chi fugge" is printed in Giusti's 1853 collection, and in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène Napoleon presents the French version as something everybody already knows.