DANDIN: It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.

[J’enrage de bon cœur d’avoir tort, lorsque j’ai raison.]

moliere - it infuriates me to be wrong when i know i'm right - wist.info quote

Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
George Dandin, or the Confounded Husband [oui le Mari confondu], Act 1, sc. 7 (1668)
    (Source)

This unsourced translation is widely attributed to Molière, but almost never with a citation to a particular play.

Interestingly, in context, this aside is not about stubbornly sticking to a point, even when demonstrably incorrect. In Dandin's case, he's complaining about how his righteous accusation of his wife being unfaithful has been turned around by others into him being the offending party. This is clearer in some of the translations below.

As with so many Molière plays, the attribution to scene 7 can vary between translations.

(Source (French)). Other translations:

I'm vex'd at my Heart to be found Fault with when I am in the Right.
[Source (1748)]

It makes me mad to be put in the wrong, when I am in the right.
[tr. Van Laun (1860?)]

I shall go mad at thus being made to be wrong when I am right.
[tr. Wall (1876)]

It makes me savage to seem wrong when I am right.
[tr. Wormeley (1894)]

I am wild at being put in the wrong when I am right.
[tr. Waller (1907)]

This tears me open: to be in the wrong when I'm right.
[tr. Bermel (1987)]


 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 11-Dec-25
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