“You are to do good work, whether you live or die. It may be you will have to die; - well, men have died for their country often, yet doing her no good; be ready to die for her in doing her assured good: her, and all other countries with her. Mind your own business with your absolute heart and soul; but see that it is a good business first. That it is corn and sweet peas you are producing, - not gunpowder and arsenic.

And be sure of this, literally: - you must simply rather die than make any destroying mechanism or compound. You are to be literally employed in cultivating the ground, or making useful things, and carrying them where they are wanted. Stand in the streets, and say to all who pass by: Have you any vineyard we can work in […] ? In your powder and petroleum manufactory, we work no more.”

Fors Clavigera (Letter Seven: Charitas, Denmark Hill, 1st July 1871)

Ruskin Cannery