I'm truly convinced that by living up to the values we stand for, we can serve as a moral inspiration for others, just as we've been morally inspired by those who came before us.
Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another.
All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.
That's what heroic stories do for us. They show us the way. They remind us of the good we are capable of.
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.
The Ten Commandments don't tell you what you ought to do: They only put ideas into your head.
To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?
That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.
Regardless of where the offer comes from, I'll choose characters that are inspiring and challenging.
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
There is nothing to compare with the courage of ordinary people whose names are unknown and whose sacrifices pass unnoticed. The courage that dares without recognition, without the protection of media attention, is a courage that humbles and inspires and reaffirms our faith in humanity.
Since I came an adult - for more than 45 years - Marcus Aurelius has been my great idol.
Nothing that has ever been thought and said with a clear mind and pure ethical strength is totally in vain; even if it comes froma weak hand and is imperfectly formed, it inspires the ethical spirit to constantly renewed creation.
I'm always on the lookout for projects with a strong moral and inspirational core.
And let me tell you, you boys of America, that there is no higher inspiration to any man to be a good man, a good citizen, and a good son, brother, or father, than the knowledge that you come from honest blood.
As a teenage daughter hears her sweet mother plead unto the Lord that her daughter will be inspired in the selection of her companions, that she will prepare herself for a temple marriage, don't you believe that such a daughter will seek to honor this humble, pleading petition of her mother, whom she so dearly loves?
Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice.
The idea - the core idea of humanism - is that the act of reading about great deeds will lead you to imitate them.
Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.
In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.
