
“It is easier to destroy knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.”
Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 15, "Good Falls Sick"
Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources
“It is easier to destroy knowledge, Ignosi, than to gather it.”
Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 15, "Good Falls Sick"
Lecture at Yale University, "Chemical Achievement and Hope for the Future." (October 1947) Published in Science in Progress. Sixth Series. Ed. George A. Baitsell. 100-21, (1949).
1940s-1960s
Context: Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences – and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made… But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.
1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)
Source: Interview by Jonathan Robinson (1994), p. 183.
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”