We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers.
 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1856). copy citation

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Author Gustave Flaubert
Source Madame Bovary
Topic admiration idols
Date 1856
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2413/2413-h/2413-h.htm

Context

“He was incapable of heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a woman, avaricious too, and cowardly.
Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she had, no doubt, calumniated him. But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers.
They gradually came to talking more frequently of matters outside their love, and in the letters that Emma wrote him she spoke of flowers, verses, the moon and the stars, naive resources of a waning passion striving to keep itself alive by all external aids.” source
Original quote

Meaning and analysis

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