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 the, standing, shoulders and/or giants:
“Grandfather sang it under the gallows:
“Hear, gentlemen, ladies, and all mankind:
Money is good and a girl might be better,
But good strong blows are delights to the mind.”
There, standing on the cart,
He sang it from his heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“For months it hasn’t known the taste of steel
Washed down with rusty water in a tin.
But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold,
Except in towns at night, is not a sin.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Rich are the sea-gods:Mwho gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
Every wave is wealth to Daedalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.... The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
—Omar Bradley (1893–1981)