- English translation
If my own eye is scarred over, I've no right to call someone else one-eyed.
- Literal wording
When the button stays on my eye, I don't say to anyone else, 'Hey, one-eye!'
- Meaning and lesson
The speaker pictures himself with a ruined eye covered by a hard, knob-like growth (the "button" here is not a garment button) and concludes he has no business taunting another person as one-eyed. A flaw you carry yourself takes away your right to mock it in others.
The imagery rests on "one-eyed" used as an insult, and modern readers may find disability-based mockery offensive, though the proverb itself warns against such mockery. Its lesson is that anyone with a defect should not shame others for it, since the taunt fits the speaker too.
- When it is used
Aimed at someone who ridicules a fault they share, though phrased in the first person as a self-check; it can also serve as a self-reminder to hold back. It suits informal, everyday exchanges that call out hypocritical fault-finding.
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- Colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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