Robert Hooke was rather short of stature. His great rival, Isaac Newton, was petty and vindictive. So when Newton said:
"if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Rather than being humble, he may have actually been having a sly dig at Hooke.
It was for this reason that he could introduce things like cannabis (“the account of the plant”) to the royal society. Yet, we was also very much into esoteric philosophy and occult wisdom — much of which came from his upper class access with Boyle (an alchemist)
He also assisted sir Christopher Wren as chief surveyor in rebuilding London after the great fire.
An astonishing career. Total polymath.
Newton was undoubtedly:
a) One of the greatest geniuses who ever lived.
b) A total shit.
It is apparently in one of his letters - to Hooke.
"We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size." -- John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon (1159)
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/978019...