phrase

• A minor fault in a person observed by someone who ignores a greater fault in themselves.

  ‘before the Minister takes the mote out of Europe's eye, should not he take the beam out of his own?’

  More example sentences

  • ‘So East had a mote in his eye and was fortunate that his partner did not notice it.’
  • ‘I despise how easily these extremists strive to pluck the mote out of someone else's eye while leaving the well-rooted tree that's in their own.’
  • ‘But if he noticed the beam in the eye of the other, he could not see the mote in his own.’
  • ‘Look at the mote in your own eye first, congressman.’
  • ‘I seem to recall something in the Bible about removing the mote from one's own eye before pointing to the splinter in someone else's.’
  • ‘If locals want to pluck the mote of financial mismanagement from the eye of their Government they need to start by removing the planks of laziness and indifference from their own.’
  • ‘And to the British and European hypocrites who thought this was a good idea, I say remove the beam from your own eye before taking the mote from my eye.’
  • ‘Ever since Black Wednesday, in March 1996, the rest of Europe has regarded BSE as being a peculiarly British disease, but these last 12 months have seen a rude awakening to the mote in their own eye.’
  • ‘If this fight is only to be a yelling match about the motes in each other's eyes I am not interested in participating.’

  Origin

  With biblical allusion to Matt. 7:3.