“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
August Wilson Gem of the Ocean
Source: Gem of the Ocean
Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 6, p. 180
“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
August Wilson Gem of the Ocean
Source: Gem of the Ocean
“In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author
In terra di ciechi chi vi ha un occhio è signore.
Act III, scene ix
The Mandrake (1524)
“In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.”
In regione caecorum rex est luscus.
Desiderius Erasmus book Adagia
Adagia (first published 1500, with numerous expanded editions through 1536), III, IV, 96
Also in the same passage of the Adagia is a variant: Inter caecos regnat strabus (Among the blind, the squinter rules).
Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) American anthropologist
Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (1983) Basic Books, 2000, p. 58.
Colin Wilson book The Outsider
Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter one, The Country of the Blind, referencing a quote by Desiderius Erasmus.
Context: He alone is aware of the truth, and if all men were aware of it, there would be an end of life. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But his kingship is kingship over nothing. It brings no powers and privileges, only loss of faith and exhaustion of the power to act. Its world is a world without values.
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.”
Joan D. Vinge (1948) American writer
Raghuram G. Rajan (1963) Indian economist
We are a little bit that way. <br class="br">On India's performance amid the 2015 world economy slow down, as quoted in " India 'one-eyed' king in land of blind, says Rajan http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/india-one-eyed-king-in-land-of-blind-says-rajan-116041600663_1.html", Business Standard (16 April 2016)
“In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is lucky to escape with his life.”
Celia Green (1935) British philosopher
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man will poke out his eye to fit in.”
Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer
12 December 2010
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2010