Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) is a Western metaphor with a contemporary interpretation meaning "One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding and building on the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past".
Its most familiar expression is found in the letters of Isaac Newton:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.However, the metaphor was first recorded in the twelfth century and attributed to Bernard of Chartres.
Read more about Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants: Attribution and Meaning, References During The Sixteenth To Nineteenth Centuries, Contemporary References
Famous quotes containing the words shoulders of giants, standing on, standing, shoulders and/or giants:
“If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and particle of God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If a man is a good lawyer, a good physician, a good engineer ... he may be a fool in every other capacity. But no deficiency or mistake of judgment is forgiven to a woman ... and should she fail anywhere, if she has any scientific attainment, or artistic faculty, instead of standing her interest as an excuse, it is censured as an aggravation and offence.”
—E.P.P., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Una, p. 28 ( February 1855)
“Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“But can see better there, and laughing there
Pity the giants wallowing on the plain.
...
Pygmies expand in cold impossible air,
Cry fie on the giantshine, poor glory which
Pounds breast-bone punily, screeches, and has
Reached no Alps: or, knows no Alps to reach.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)