“We are told, that in the sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and were on the verge of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refine policy than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the exercise of arms.”

(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I, chapter X; p. 282 in volume 1 of the Penguin edition.)