Dominique Bouhours

Dominique Bouhours SJ (15 May 1628 – 27 May 1702) was a French Jesuit priest, essayist, grammarian, and neo-classical critic. He was born and died in Paris.

Attributed

• Il y a des gens à qui la vertu sied presque aussi mal que le vice.
  • There are some persons on whom virtue sits almost as ungraciously as vice.
  • Reported in D. E. MacDonnell (ed.) A Dictionary of Select and Popular Quotations, 3rd American ed. (Philadelphia: A. Finley, 1818) p. 115
  • Translation in Wm. Francis Henry King (ed.) Classical and Foreign Quotations, 2nd ed. (London: Whitaker & Sons, 1889) p. 238, no. 2,152
    • There are some men on whom virtue sits almost as awkwardly as vice."

• Je vais ou je vas mourir, l'un et l'autre se dit ou se disent.
  • I die or I am dying, either expression is correct.
  • Last words, reported in The Christian Review, no. 74 (Oct. 1853) art. 3, p. 564
  • Translation in Barnaby Conrad, Fun While It Lasted (New York: Random House, 1969) p. 392:
    • I am dying – or I am about to die – either expression is correct.

• Money is a good servant, but a dangerous master.
  • Reported in Maturin M. Ballou (ed.) Treasury of Thought, 7th ed. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co, 1881) p. 348
  • Cf. Bacon, De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) bk. 6, 6:
    • Divitiæ bona ancilla, pessima domina. [Riches are a good handmaiden, but the worst mistress.]

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Dominique Bouhours on Wikipedia