On the back of each little notebook, he published the JFW code, adapted from words by the Victorian writer and social critic John Ruskin: "God has given us the earth for our life. It is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who come after us as to us, and we have no right by anything we do, or neglect to do, to involve them in unnecessary penalties or to deprive them of benefits which are theirs by right.”