burn one's fingers

Idioms  

1. Harm oneself, as in I'm staying away from risky stocks; I've burned my fingers often enough. Some believe this expression came from a legend about a monkey who gets a cat to pull its chestnuts out of the fire (see cat's paw); others hold it is from an English proverb: “Burn not thy fingers to snuff another's candle” (James Howell, English Proverbs, 1659). [c. 1700]

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Example Sentences

I haven't the moral courage, and one can easily burn one's fingers at it, too.

From Project Gutenberg

By Robert E. MacAlarney It isn’t at all pleasant to burn one’s fingers, but it’s worth while burning them now and then, if you have to be scorched to be near a particularly attractive fire; at least I’ve found it that way.

From Project Gutenberg

“Looks as if it would burn one’s fingers,” said Joe, handling the beautiful piece of rotten, glowing wood.

From Project Gutenberg

If I put a piece of lime obtained from this chalk into the gas, you see we get a pretty hot flame, which would burn one's fingers a good deal But now let me subject a piece of it to the joint action of oxygen and hydrogen.

From Project Gutenberg

They were always "sure that the weather was getting quite hot," and "it must be summer, for they heard the sparrows chirping every morning the first thing," and they "thought they had seen a swallow," and "the windows got so warm with the sunshine, Nurse declared they were enough to burn one's fingers:" and so the poor little things teazed themselves and everybody else, every year, in their hurry to get back to their western home.

From Project Gutenberg