sleeping giant

A metaphor, maybe derived from Gulliver's Travels (1726), and made popular by the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, see quotations.

• "There is a sleeping giant in education that is just beginning to awaken."
• "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
• "The Council regards the Alliance as a sleeping giant. Less than 3% of humans volunteer to serve in their military, a lower proportion than any other species."
• "Angered by a controversial Arizona immigration law, tens of thousands of protesters[…] rallied in cities nationwide[…]. "I want to thank the governor of Arizona because she's awakened a sleeping giant," said labor organizer John Delgado, who attended a rally in New York where authorities estimated 6,500 gathered."
• "Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who has worked as an Arizona pollster for four decades, is skeptical that the Latino “sleeping giant” will wake anytime soon."
• "Europe’s Sleeping Giant Awakens [title, referring to Germany]"

• let sleeping dogs lie