If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. — Isaac Newton · Smartyfair

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton1643–1727 · scientist · 1600s-1700s EnglandIsaac Newton was an English scientist who figured out the laws of gravity and motion that explain how everything from apples to planets move.4 quotes

Source foundScienceAncient

In plain words

He could see far because he was standing on the work of people before him.

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Where these words come from

How sure this is: 93% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up: Letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675/1676
Sources checked: en.wikiquote.orgChecked using claude-sonnet-5, 20 August 2026
en.wikipedia.orgChecked using claude-sonnet-5, 21 August 2026Quotes the full sentence from Newton's letter and cites the scholarly published edition H.W. Turnbull (ed.), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton: 1661-1675, Vol. 1 (Royal Society, 1959), p. 416 — stronger than a bare Wikiquote link.

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More from Isaac Newton

Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth.

Isaac Newton To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.

Isaac Newton I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait 'till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

More on science

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

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Carl Sagan Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Carl Sagan Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

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