Well, we knocked the bastard off!" - Meaning and context.">
Hillary's comment to George Lowe, after his successful ascent of Mt Everest, as he and Tenzing Norgay were descending from the summit. (29 May 1953); as recounted in Nothing Venture, Nothing Win (1975) Ch. 10; also recounted as "Well George, we’ve knocked the bastard off." as quoted by Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" for Time magazine (14 June 1999)

Well, we knocked the bastard off!

— Edmund Hillary

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Well, we knocked the bastard off!" in the context of "Hillary's comment to George Lowe, after his successful ascent of Mt Everest, as he and Tenzing Norgay were descending from the summit. (29 May 1953); as recounted in Nothing Venture, Nothing Win (1975) Ch. 10; also recounted as "Well George, we’ve knocked the bastard off." as quoted by Jan Morris in "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay" for Time magazine (14 June 1999)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Edmund Hillary" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Edmund Hillary

About Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest.