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 standing on, standing, shoulders and/or giants:
“The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 18:13.
“As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“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)