who said if i have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants
Isaac Newton
title: Standing on the shoulders of giants text: Standing on the shoulders of giants The metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants () expresses the meaning of "discovering truth by building on previous discoveries". This concept has been traced to the 12th century, attributed to Bernard of Chartres. Its most familiar expression in English is by Isaac Newton in 1675: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." The attribution to Bernard of Chartres is due to John of Salisbury. In 1159, John wrote in his "Metalogicon": "Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders title: Standing on the shoulders of giants text: calling to his brother through the desolate intervals of time," an idea he got from Schopenhauer's work in "Der handschriftliche Nachlass". Standing on the shoulders of giants The metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants () expresses the meaning of "discovering truth by building on previous discoveries". This concept has been traced to the 12th century, attributed to Bernard of Chartres. Its most familiar expression in English is by Isaac Newton in 1675: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." The attribution to Bernard of Chartres is due to John of title: Isaac Newton text: to establish." English poet Alexander Pope wrote the famous epitaph: Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;<br> God said "Let Newton be" and all was light. Newton was relatively modest about his achievements, writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Two writers think that the above quotation, written at a time when Newton and Hooke were in dispute over optical discoveries, was an oblique attack on Hooke (said to have been short and hunchbacked), rather than—or in addition to—a statement of modesty. title: Standing on the shoulders of giants text: of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature." According to medieval historian Richard William Southern, Bernard was comparing contemporary 12th century scholars to the ancient scholars of Greece and Rome: [The phrase] sums up the quality of the cathedral schools in the history of learning, and indeed characterizes the age which opened with Gerbert (950–1003) and Fulbert (960–1028) and closed in the first quarter of the 12th century with Peter Abelard. [The title: Standing on the shoulders of giants text: had become commonplace. Robert Burton, in "The Anatomy of Melancholy" (1621), quotes Stella thus: I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself. Later editors of Burton misattributed the quote to Lucan; in their hands Burton's attribution "Didacus Stella, in luc 10, tom. ii" "Didacus on the Gospel of "Luke", chapter 10; volume 2" became a reference to Lucan's "Pharsalia" 2.10. No reference or allusion to the quote is found there. Later in the 17th century, George Herbert, in his "Jacula Prudentum" (1651), wrote "A dwarf on a