Talk:Diego de Estella

Untitled
I am lookig for A Didacus B.C.

One source of "Dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants"
In English, the locus classicus of "We are dwarves standing upon the shoulders of giants" is William Temple's 1692 Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning. However, Temple probably got the phrase from Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which very early on says, "Though there were many giants of old in physic and philosophy, yet I say with Didacus Stella, 'A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.'" However a courtier with Charles Martel had made a similar observation in Latin -- that they were but dwarves on the shoulders of giants. Therefore, Didacus Stella isn't "the" original of the phrase, since he wrote in Latin and may have known it from the Carolingian sayings or a Roman source, but he is the source of the man who provided the original formulation for the guy who was "the" source. Hithladaeus (talk) 03:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)