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Is "troppo è come niente" an Italian proverb meaning "too much is like nothing"?

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    The few occurrences that can be found on the Internet rather suggest "il troppo è come il niente". The translation remains the one you cite. I've personally never heard this one.
    – Walter Tross
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 22:52
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    Not AFAIK. It means "too much is like nothing", but it's neither a proverb nor an idiomatic expression as far as I know. There are many proverbs addressing the "having too much" thing, as explained in Davide Borsatto's answer, but I too didn't heard of this one. However I'm assuming you're not just asking this out of the blue, so where did you heard this in first place?
    – kos
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 1:00

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I'm Italian and honestly I've never heard of this, although if I had to guess then yes, it would mean something like "too much is like nothing".

Other proverbs with similar words are "il troppo stroppia" meaning "too much (of something) can be annoying" and "chi troppo vuole nulla stringe", meaning "who wants too much will get nothing". They are both much more famous proverbs about "troppo". I tried googling yours and I couldn't find anything of significance. Where did you find it?

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  • Benvenuto su Italian.SE, @Davide!
    – Charo ♦
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 11:11
  • While I definitely agree with the answer in general, I would struggle to relate "troppo è come niente" to "who wants too much will get nothing". As a computer scientist, to me these are two completely different meanings. If I have to dig through an immense amount of possibilities and data, it's just as hard as having 'no' data at all to start from. This meaning does not relate to "wanting too much".
    – funforums
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 14:54
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    @funforums Yes, I'm aware that they have two different meanings. I wasn't implying that they mean the same thing, I was just mentioning other proverbs about "troppo". Maybe the person who asked just misremembered the original proverb, and I was providing the most likely alternatives that actually exist. Also, I never said or implied that "troppo è come niente" is related in any way to "who wants too much will get nothing".
    – Davide Borsatto
    Commented Sep 6, 2015 at 15:21

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