Among the blind the one-eyed man is king.

Adagia, Dignitas et Excellentia et Inequalitas, sub-division, Excel. et Ineq. (about 1500). Proverbs collected by Michael Apostolios, Cent. VII. 31. Latin given as: Cæcorum in patria luscus rex imperat omnis. Taken from the Greek. See Chiliades—Adagiorum, fifth centuria, third Chilias No. 96. Earliest use probably in G. Fullenius—Comedye of Acolastus, translation. by John Palsgrave from the Latin. (1540). Quoted by Edmund Campion—Rationes Decom. (1581). Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Book 4, Chapter II. Quoted as: Beati monoculi in regione cæcorum. Blessed are the one-eyed in the country of the blind. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651). Also in Miscellanæ, Part II. Fourth Ed., p. 342. Juvenal—Satire X. 227, gives it as: Ambes Perdidit ille oculus et luscis invidet.