"it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest" meaning in English

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        "head": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest"
      },
      "expansion": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest",
      "name": "head"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1872, John Ruskin, The Eagle's Nest",
          "text": "They say it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest. My own feeling is that a well-behaved bird will neither foul its own nest nor another's, but that, finding it in any wise foul, it will openly say so, and clean it.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona",
          "text": "It's an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all Hieland.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Richard Ostrofsky, Sharing Realities: Toward an Epistemology of Conversation, page 173",
          "text": "The saying, “It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest” expresses the most universal of ethical norms, and is probably the source of all such norms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Charles Macnab, Understanding the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Assassination",
          "text": "He admitted then to having had, for two years, “documents in [his] possession sufficient to have destroyed [the Fenians operating in Montreal], but [he had] thought it was an ill bird that fouled its own nest.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A condemnation of anyone who damages his or her own interests, reputation, or group."
      ],
      "id": "en-it's_an_ill_bird_that_fouls_its_own_nest-en-proverb-2wbQkk-K",
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "don't shit in your own nest"
        },
        {
          "word": "foul one's own nest"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb",
        "head": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest"
      },
      "expansion": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "don't shit in your own nest"
    },
    {
      "word": "foul one's own nest"
    }
  ],
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1872, John Ruskin, The Eagle's Nest",
          "text": "They say it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest. My own feeling is that a well-behaved bird will neither foul its own nest nor another's, but that, finding it in any wise foul, it will openly say so, and clean it.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1893, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona",
          "text": "It's an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all Hieland.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Richard Ostrofsky, Sharing Realities: Toward an Epistemology of Conversation, page 173",
          "text": "The saying, “It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest” expresses the most universal of ethical norms, and is probably the source of all such norms.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Charles Macnab, Understanding the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Assassination",
          "text": "He admitted then to having had, for two years, “documents in [his] possession sufficient to have destroyed [the Fenians operating in Montreal], but [he had] thought it was an ill bird that fouled its own nest.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A condemnation of anyone who damages his or her own interests, reputation, or group."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest"
}