Figure of Speech
When a person overly idealizes someone (or something, an object or idea), it is often referred to as "putting them on a pedestal".
The pejorative phrase "put on a pedestal" is often used to critique celebrity culture, an elected official or position of authority, about someone who is looked up to, held in high regard or revered. To an extent that an accusation or crime may have been overlooked or disregarded, when an investigation or criminal prosecution was later found necessary, because an abuse of position or social standing was committed.
Read more about this topic: Pedestal
Famous quotes containing the words figure of, figure and/or speech:
“Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.”
—Mae West, U.S. screenwriter, W.C. Fields, and Edward Cline. Flower Belle Lee (Mae West)
“There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)