Last week I visited the Chicago Tribune Tower which has many quotes inscribed in the wall of the lobby. This one moved me and I thought it had a lot of good ideas for system administrators:
"Therefore when we build let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such Work as our descendants will thank us for and let us think as we lay Stone on Stone that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them and that men will say as they look upon the labor and the wrought substance of them, 'See this our fathers did for us.' " --John Ruskin
Descendants: "Yea Gods, what a mess of old stones. I'm going to rebuild it using AJAX."