We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. Our glance can thus take in more things and reach farther than theirs. It is not because our sight is sharper nor our height greater than theirs; it is that we are carried and elevated by the high stature of the giants.

Attributed to Bernard of Chartres in John of Salisbury, Metalogicon [1159], Book III, chapter 4, quoted in E. Jeaneau, 'Bernard of Chartres', in C. C. Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biography (1971), Vol. 3