20 Italian Phrases & Quotes about Life (with English Translations)

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Life – or la vita in Italian – is a rollercoaster filled with incredible highs and devastating lows. Unfortunately there isn’t a single handbook to help us navigate all of life’s ups and downs but that is exactly what makes it such an adventure!

Below you’ll find a collection of twenty of our favourite inspirational, humorous and interesting life quotes in the Italian language, all of which have been translated into English. We hope you enjoy them!

italian quotes about life

1. La vita è fatta così.

English translation: Such is life.

2. Così è la vita.

English translation: That’s the way life is. / That’s life.

3. La vita è bella.

English translation: Life is beautiful.

group of friends laughing, smiling and toasting with bottles of beer on a rooftop at sunset

4. Forza e coraggio che la vita è un passaggio.

English translation: Strength and courage because life is a passage.

5. Finché c’è vita c’è speranza.

English translation: As long as there is life, there is hope.

6. Sin che si vive, s’impara sempre.

English translation: As long as you live, you always learn.

elderly Indian woman using a computer and a tablet

7. La vita è fatta a scale: c’è chi scende e c’è chi sale.

English translation: Life is made up of stairs: there are those who go down and those who go up.

8. Tutto arriva nella vita, presto o tardi.

English translation: Everything comes in life, sooner or later.

9. Chi vive vede molto, chi viaggia vede di più.

English translation: Those who live see a lot, those who travel see more.

young boy on a hot-air balloon

10. La vita è seminata di spine più che di fiori.

English translation: Life is sown with thorns rather than flowers.

11. La vita è già mezzo trascorsa anziché si sappia che cosa sia.

English translation: Life is already half spent before we know what it is.

12. Se vuoi vivere cent’anni senza pene, prendi il mondo come viene.

English translation: If you want to live a hundred years without pain, take the world as it comes.

friends playing around with sparklers on a field

13. Chi beve vino campa cent’anni.

English translation: He who drinks wine lives one hundred years.

14. La vita è breve e l’arte è lunga.

English translation: Life is short and art is long.

15. Anno nuovo, vita nuova.

English translation: New year, new life.

Anno nuovo, vita nuova!

16. Chi muore giace e chi vive si dà pace.

English translation: Those who die lie and those who live give themselves peace.

17. Val più una messa in vita che cento in morte.

English translation: One Mass is worth more in life than one hundred in death.

18. Finché c’è fiato, c’è vita.

English translation: As long as there is breath, there is life.

human hands with plastic gloves holding a little plant with soil

19. Vivi e lascia vivere.

English translation: Live and let live.

20. Bisogna mangiare per vivere e non vivere per mangiare.

English translation: One must eat to live and not live to eat.

hands cutting through a fish meal on a plate

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