An X among Ys, a Y among Xs

An X among Ys, a Y among Xs (or An X with Ys, a Y with Xs, among other variations) is a meme popular in literature from the ancient times to the 18th centuries, in which the subject is spoken of as displaying one characteristic among or relative to a group of people having a second, but displaying the second characteristic among or relative to a group of people having the first.

Sourced

• A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
  • Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1728-1743), Book iv, line 90.

• I come to tell you this, and to advise you to shut the gates of your gardens forthwith, and to cease the harangues of a master, since you only pass for a philosopher among fools, and for a fool among philosophers.
  • Frances Wright, A few days in Athens (1822), p. 51.

• Qui stultis videri eruditi volunt stulti eruditis videntur.
  • Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
  • Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD), book X, 7, line 21.

• If he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.
  • William Shakespeare, King Henry V (c. 1599), Act v, Scene 2.

Attributed

• This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords.
  • Samuel Johnson Boswell's Life, vol. ii, ch. i, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
  • William Cowper, Conversation, line 298, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.
  • Sir Walter Scott, Life of Napoleon, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• He [Steele] was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Review of Aikin's Life of Addison, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Temple was a man of the world among men of letters, a man of letters among men of the world.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Review of Life and Writings of Sir William Temple, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Delle belle eruditissima, delle erudite bellissima.
• Translated: "Most learned of the fair; fairest of the learned".
  • Attributed to Sannazarius by Greswell in his Memoirs of Politian, inscribed to Cassandra Marchesia an edition of his Italian Poems, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.
  • Seneca the Younger, Epistles, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).