“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676) [dated as 5 February 1675 using the Julian calendar with March 25th rather than January 1st as New Years Day, equivalent to 15 February 1676 by Gregorian reckonings.] A facsimile of the original is online at The digital Library https://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/objects/9792. The quotation is 7-8 lines up from the bottom of the first page. The phrase is most famous as an expression of Newton's but he was using a metaphor which in its earliest known form was attributed to Bernard of Chartres by John of Salisbury: Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants. Modernized variants: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Variant: If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants.
Source: The Correspondence Of Isaac Newton
