God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Ruskin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.