What's worth saving

Here's a nice passage from Ingrid Rowland's post Saving Alexandria about Egyptians surrounding the Alexandrine library to protect it against vandalism: 
Blind rage cannot understand anything as complex or beautiful as Rome, or a library, or even a person, an animal, a book, a tree, a work of art—but blind rage can make these intricate systems stop, and the ability to make things stop has served many of our kind since time immemorial as a fine substitute for learning, experience, scientific method, artistic creation, philosophy.