The letters presented here in English and Chinese are about rejecting war and about non-violence. They are also relevant and inspiring for other reasons. I will mention two, especially valid for our times.

The first is the primacy of conscience over unjust laws. The Letters teach us how to develop a free and critical conscience, and to reject blind obedience to human authorities. We have the right to civil disobedience, to disobey unjust or criminal orders: obedience is no longer a virtue!

The second lesson is the rejection of nationalism, and any ideology of violence. "If you persist in claiming the right to divide the world into Italians and foreigners, then I must say that I have no Homeland. I would then want the right to divide the world into disinherited and oppressed on one side, and privileged and oppressors on the other. At least in the choice of weapons we are much better than you. The arms that you condone are horrible devices of war to kill, to mutilate, to destroy, to make widows and orphans The only weapons I condone are noble and bloodless: the strike and the ballot."