“A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two.”

—  George Herbert

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two." by George Herbert?
George Herbert photo
George Herbert 216
Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest 1593–1633

Related quotes

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant, when he has the Giant's shoulders to mount on.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

The Friend; A Series of Essays (1812), No. 15 (30 November 1809), p. 228
Cf. Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676): "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants".

Robert Burton photo

“I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader

John of Salisbury photo

“Bernard of Chartres used to say that we were like dwarfs seated on the shoulders of giants. If we see more and further than they, it is not due to our own clear eyes or tall bodies, but because we are raised on high and upborne by their gigantic bigness.”
Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvehimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea

John of Salisbury book Metalogicon

Metalogicon (1159) bk. 3, ch. 4. Translation from Henry Osborn Taylor The Mediaeval Mind ([1911] 1919) vol. 2, p. 159; such similes were available to Isaac Newton, when he humbly made use of them in comparing his progress in scientific ideas to those whose ideas he drew upon, in his famous statement to Robert Hooke in a letter of 15 February 1676: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Mark Eyskens photo

“Europe is an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm.”

Mark Eyskens (1933) Belgian politician

As quoted by Craig R. Whitney in WAR IN THE GULF: EUROPE; Gulf Fighting Shatters Europeans' Fragile Unity, The New York Times, January 25th, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/25/world/war-in-the-gulf-europe-gulf-fighting-shatters-europeans-fragile-unity.html?pagewanted=1
This phrase was pronounced in January 1991, a few days before the beginning of Desert Storm, while Eyskens was the Foreign Minister of Belgium.

Wilkie Collins photo

“Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Terry Pratchett photo

“Silverfish looked down.
"Oh. Are you a dwarf?"
Cuddy gave him a blank stare.
"Are you a giant?" He said.
"Me? Of course not!"
"Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Men at Arms: The Play

Tom Robbins photo

“Genius may stand on the shoulders of giants, but it stands alone.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

The Syntax of Sorcery (2012)

Anne Rice photo

“Sometimes fear is a warning. It's like someone putting a hand on your shoulder and saying Go No Farther.”

Anne Rice book Memnoch the Devil

Source: Memnoch the Devil

Isaac Newton photo

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

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

Hal Abelson photo

“If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.”

Hal Abelson (1947) computer scientist

Abelson attributes this thought to his Princeton roommate Jeff Goll
Source: Public Knowledge - Hal Abelson http://www.publicknowledge.org/about/who/board/abelson; also quoted in Vortex dynamics in thin films of amorphous Mo77Ge23, 1998, p. 6

Related topics