August 15, 2026

One Eye Is Enough

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Erasmus gathered this proverb from ancient Greek sources into his Adagia, a massive collection of classical sayings he compiled and expanded throughout his life, starting in 1500. He wrote much of it while moving from city to city across Europe, dependent on shifting patrons and unstable politics, needing to make whatever talent he had count wherever he landed. The saying captures a hard truth about resilience: in a place of scarcity, even a partial advantage becomes decisive power. It is not about having everything you need, it is about using the one thing you do have.