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Who really said it

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

Written by Isaac Newton 1642–1727 · English physicist & mathematician
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Newton wrote it in his own hand in a letter to Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1675 (Old Style; 1676 by modern reckoning). The autograph manuscript survives, so the wording is firmly his — though the metaphor itself was already centuries old when he used it.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675

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Provenance

The source

Source
Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke
Date
5 February 1675 (Old Style; 1676 New Style)
First published
1855, long after Newton’s death
Older origin
The metaphor traces to Bernard of Chartres, 12th century

What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders of Giants.

From Newton’s autograph letter to Hooke; the manuscript spells it “sholders,” normalised in modern quotation to “shoulders.”

Autograph manuscript
Newton’s 1675 letter to Hooke, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Standing on the shoulders of giants (Wikipedia, sourced)

How we know

  • The words are Newton’s own: he wrote them in a letter to Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1675, whose text and history are documented in Wikipedia’s sourced entry.
  • The fuller passage — crediting Descartes and Hooke’s work on thin-plate colours — is reproduced from the manuscript by The Marginalian.
  • The metaphor long predates Newton: John of Salisbury (1159) attributes it to Bernard of Chartres, with the earliest attestation in William of Conches’s glosses (c. 1123).
Public domain

Newton wrote the letter in 1675 and it was first published in 1855; both the manuscript and its first printing are long in the public domain in the United States.

Fact-check

What people get wrong

The wording is authentically Newton’s — but the popular belief that he coined the idea is wrong. He was reworking a metaphor that had circulated in European learning for over five hundred years.

Bernard of Chartres true origin of the metaphor

The image of dwarfs seeing farther because they stand on giants’ shoulders is credited to the 12th-century scholar Bernard of Chartres by John of Salisbury in his Metalogicon (1159); the earliest surviving attestation is in William of Conches’s glosses on Priscian, c. 1123, per the documented history.

A humble Newton? context often lost

The line is quoted as pure modesty, but it sits inside a barbed exchange with Robert Hooke — who was of slight build and had a pronounced stoop — leading some writers to read a dig beneath the courtesy, as discussed here.

Newton really wrote these words in 1675, but he was passing along a medieval commonplace, not minting an original thought — see the sourced record.

Context

Why it mattered

The sentence has become the motto of cumulative science — the acknowledgement that every discovery rests on the work of predecessors. It is engraved on the edge of the British two-pound coin and adorns the title page of countless dissertations.

The irony is that the phrase itself proves its own point: Newton saw further into the metaphor because he was standing on Bernard of Chartres, John of Salisbury and centuries of scribes who kept the image alive.

The phrase proves its own point: Newton borrowed it from giants who came before.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Knowledge Humility Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Standing on the shoulders of giantsen.wikipedia.org

Sourced history of the phrase from Bernard of Chartres to Newton, with the letter text and dates.
Isaac Newtonen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced collection of Newton quotations, including the Hooke letter.
The Story Behind Newton’s Famous Metaphorthemarginalian.org

Reproduces the fuller passage from the manuscript and discusses the Hooke feud.
Newton letter to Robert Hooke, 1675digitallibrary.hsp.org

Catalogue record for the surviving autograph letter held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
On the Shoulders of Giantsamericanscientist.org

Essay on Robert Merton’s book tracing the aphorism’s long pre-Newton history.

The author

About Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

1642–1727 · English physicist & mathematician

Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist and astronomer whose Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) laid the foundations of classical mechanics and universal gravitation. The famous line comes from his correspondence with rival natural philosopher Robert Hooke during a dispute over the theory of light and colour.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675 (O.S.), in The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 1, ed. H. W. Turnbull (Cambridge, 1959); text first published 1855.

MLA (9th ed.)

Newton, Isaac. Letter to Robert Hooke. 5 Feb. 1675. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 1, edited by H. W. Turnbull, Cambridge UP, 1959.

APA (7th ed.)

Newton, I. (1959). Letter to Robert Hooke, 5 February 1675 (H. W. Turnbull, Ed.). In The correspondence of Isaac Newton (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1675)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-i-have-seen-further-it-is-by-standing-on-the-shoulders

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