I don’t know how I originally found it, but Caterina Fake recently wrote a post entitled Make things. In it is the following quote from Freeman Dyson:
There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.
A little searching through Google Books helped me find the source of the quote: Disturbing the Universe, by Freeman Dyson, pp 9-10. Here is the full paragraph:
In the magic city there are not only deliverers and destroyers but also a great multitude of honest craftsmen, artisans and scribes. Much of the joy of science is the joy of solid work done by skilled workmen. Many of us are happy to spend our lives in collaborative efforts where to be reliable is more important than to be original. There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use. We do not all have the talent or the ambition to become prima donnas. The essential factor which keeps the scientific enterprise healthy is a shared respect for quality. Everybody can take pride in the quality of his own work, and we expect rough treatment from our colleagues whenever we produce something shoddy. The knowledge that quality counts makes even routine tasks rewarding.
I don’t know what “the magic city” is, but it is an inspiring paragraph.