A turn of a phrase

The pot calling the kettle black

Meaning:

The notion of a criticism a person is making of another could equally well apply to themselves.

Origin:

This phrase originates in Cervantes' Don Quixote, or at least in Thomas Shelton's 1620 translation - Cervantes Saavedra's History of Don Quixote:

"You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, 'Avant, black-browes'."

The first person who is recorded as using the phrase in English was William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in his Some fruits of solitude, 1693:

"For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality... is for the Pot to call the Kettle black."

Shakespeare had previously expressed a similar notion in a line in Troilus and Cressida, 1606:

"The raven chides blackness."

Another way to think of this phrase is to listen to a repugican rant and rave about (or in the case of the British ... a Tory ranting and raving)