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, 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)
“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)
“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)
“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)