Meaning
What does Live Laugh Love mean?
Live laugh love is a clichéd phrase, widely considered basic and shallow, due to the large frequency of its use.
Origin
What's the origin of Live Laugh Love?
The catchphrase is taken from successful poems, like Success by Bessie Anderson Stanley, published in 1904.
The poem opens with the lines “He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much”.
The concept was also taken up by Ralph Waldo Emmerson, who also pondered upon the subject of success, beginning the thoughts with “To laugh often and love much”.
These literary works had all contributed to “live laugh love” being so widely present in our culture.
Spread & Usage
How did Live Laugh Love spread?
“Live laugh love” is ever so present in our age, appearing in all the different contexts, be it merchandize, body art or interior design, not to mention inspirational posts on social media.
The phrase became clichéd by the 2010’s, as it would be seen by everyone all too often.
It was first defined on Urban Dictionary in 2011.
Discussions about the annoying frequency of the line are not rare on Reddit, or Facebook.
On April 30th, 2018, Howey Benjamin uploaded a humorous song to YouTube with the title “Live Laugh Love”.

External resources
- Refinery29.com – A Deep Dive Into How ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ Infiltrated Our Homes
- Know Your Meme – Live Laugh Love
- Housebeautiful.com – This Is the Origin of “Live, Laugh, Love”