Older Than They Think/Literature: Difference between revisions

* The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" was famously used by Newton to Hooke (1676): ''"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."'', but actually it dates back to the 12 century, when John of Salisbury wrote

{{quote| Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like '''dwarfs on the shoulders of giants''', so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.}}