Short Moral Stories in English

Morning Assembly Programme

Short Moral Stories in English

Short moral stories are best for children who have been reading for generations.These short stories with morals are popular in different languages and parts of the world. A moral story depicts practical situations excitingly and carries a message that imbibes moral values in the children. Different short moral stories teach different lessons to kids. The stories also make children responsible, respectful, empathetic, and honest from a very early age.

Once upon a time, a farmer had a goose that laid a golden egg every day. The farmer used to sell that egg and earn enough money to meet their family's day-to-day needs. One day, the farmer thought that if he could get more such golden eggs and make a lot of money and become a wealthy person. The farmer decided to cut the goose and remove all the golden eggs from its stomach. As soon as they killed the bird and opened the goose’s stomach, they found no eggs. The foolish farmer realized they had destroyed their last resource out of greed.

Moral: Greed destroys your resource.

A shepherd boy in a village used to take his herd of sheep across the fields near the forest. He felt this job was very dull and wanted to have some fun. One day while grazing the sheep, he shouted, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is carrying away a lamb!" Farmers working in the nearby fields came running for help but didn’t find any wolf. The boy laughed and replied, "It was just fun. There is no wolf here". The boy played a similar trick repeatedly for many days. After some days, while the shepherd boy was in the field with the herd of sheep, suddenly, a wolf came out from the nearby forest and attacked one of the lambs. The boy was frightened and cried loudly, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is carrying a lamb away!" The farmers thought the boy was playing mischief again. So, no one paid attention to him and didn’t come to his help.

Moral: No one believes a liar even if they speak the truth once.

Having a best friend by Shaikh Subuhi is one of the best friendship moral stories in English. The story is about two friends who were walking through the desert. During the journey, they argued over something, and one friend slapped the other. The one who got slapped was hurt by this gesture of his best friend but did not react. He quietly wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me.” After some time, they found an oasis and started taking a bath in the lake. Suddenly, the one who had been slapped started drowning. Then his friend came to his rescue and saved him. After he recovered from the drowning, he engraved “Today my best friend saved my life” on a stone. The friend who had slapped earlier and later saved his best friend asked, “After I slapped you, you wrote in the sand, and now, as I saved you, you write on a stone, why?” The other friend replied, “I wrote in on sand because we should not keep the feeling of getting hurt by someone for a long time. But, when someone does something good for us, we must remember it forever like a message engraved on a stone that nothing can erase”.

Moral: Remember the good things that happen in life, not the bad memories.

There was a king with only one leg and one eye but was generous and competent as a ruler. One day while walking in his palace, the king noticed the portraits of his ancestors along the hallway. He also wanted his portrait painted by an artist but was unsure how it would turn out due to his physical abnormalities. The King invited all the painters across the kingdoms and asked who could paint a beautiful picture of him. The painters were confused about how to make a beautiful picture of the King with only one leg and one eye. All the painters politely refused to make a painting of the King. Then one young painter came forward and ensured to make a beautiful portrait of the King. After a few days, the young painter unveiled the portrait in the court in which the King was seen sitting on the horse with one leg visible, holding his bow and aiming the arrow with one eye closed. There was no sign of physical deficiencies in the king in the painting. The King was pleased to see that the painter had creatively presented the King’s positive characteristics but not highlighted the abnormalities.

Moral: Look at the positive aspects of someone without emphasizing the limitations.

A pig found its way into a meadow where a shepherd was grazing a herd of sheep. The shepherd caught the pig and carried him off toward the butcher shop when it started crying loud and struggled to get free. The sheep told the pig, "The shepherd catches us regularly and drags us off like that, and we don't make any noise." The pig replied, "My case and yours are altogether different; he catches and takes you to shave off the wool, but he wants me to be killed for making the bacon."

Moral: Don’t compare two situations without understanding them.

A man was walking nearby to a group of elephants that was halted by a small rope tied to their front leg. He was amazed by the fact that the huge elephants are not even making an attempt to break the rope and set themselves free. He saw an elephant trainer standing beside them and he expressed his puzzled state of mind. The trainer said “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

Moral:It is the false belief of the elephants that denied their freedom for life time. Likewise, many people are not trying to work towards success in their life just because they failed once before. So keep on trying and don’t get tied up with some false beliefs of failure.

The real-life story of Colonel Harland Sanders who was disappointed umpteen times in his life and still made his dream come true late in his life is really inspiring. He is a seventh grade dropped out who tried many ventures in life but tasted bitter every time. He started selling chicken at his age of 40 but his dream of a restaurant was turned down many times due to conflicts and wars. Later he attempted to franchise his restaurant. His recipe got rejected 1,009 times before the final approval. And soon the secret recipe, “Kentucky Fried Chicken” became a huge hit worldwide. KFC was expanded globally and the company was sold for 2 million dollars and his face is still celebrated in the logos.

Moral:Have you stopped your attempts to a venture just because you were rejected or failed a few times? Can you even accept a failure of 1009 times? This story inspires everyone to try hard and believe in yourself until you see success despite how many times you have failed.

A marine biologist put a shark into a big tank at the time of a research experiment. Followed by that, he released some tiny bait fishes into it. As expected, the shark didn’t wait to attack those fishes and ate them. Later, a clear fiberglass was inserted into the tank which partitioned the tank into two and the shark remained in one side. A similar set of bait fish was sent to the other side of the tank like before. And the shark attempted to attack those fishes but failed by hitting on the fiberglass. The shark attempted for several days until it gave up. Later, the biologist removed the glass from the tank but the shark didn’t try to attack the small fishes. The shark always continues to see a false barrier in the tank and stopped his attempts.

Moral:It is quite common for many people to give up after many setbacks and failures. The story is an example for keep trying always and to never give up despite multiple failures.

Once upon a time, a merchant named Sam owed a huge sum of money to Tom, a money lender. The time came when the merchant ran out of the last chance given to him to give the money back. Sam had a beautiful daughter who was very affectionate with her father. Tom asked the merchant to give all the money back failing which he will marry his beautiful daughter. Tom was not at all good looking and ill minded and so the merchant was in dilemma. Tom proposed a new condition. There was a mix of black and white pebbles on the ground where they were standing. He will take two pebbles on both hands, one will be white and the other will be black. If the daughter correctly chooses the white pebble, then Tom will write off all the debt and leave the marriage proposal too. But if she chooses the black pebble, he will write off the debt but will marry the daughter. Tom bent down to pick the pebbles from the ground and the daughter noticed that he took black pebbles on both hands. The girl had three choices- to notify the same to her father which may provoke Tom, take the black pebble and sacrifice her life or simply refuse to take the pebble which might land her father into trouble. But what she did totally surprise Tom. She took the pebble from his hand and ‘accidentally’ the pebble fell off from her hand to ground. She then asked Tom to see which color pebble was left in his hand to identify the color she picked. Tom had no other choice but to show the black color pebble in his hand and set both of them free.

Moral:Sometimes, life offers you situations which not only demands hard work and perseverance but some creative thinking which saves the situation.

Some frogs were traveling through woods and two of them accidentally fell into a pit. The other frogs which were safe upside understood how deep the pit was and saw no hope for the frogs to escape out of it. Both of these frogs started trying to get out of the pit but failed many times. The frogs on the safe side shouted at them to give up the pain of trying as it was not possible. Eventually, one frog heard the other frogs and decided to stop trying and fell down to death. However, the other frog went on trying and at last managed to reach the top. The other frogs asked him, “Did you not hear us?” He explained that he was deaf and thought other frogs were encouraging him to get out.

Moral:Some people around you may ask you to be on a safer side always and stop trying and taking risks. However, there is no gain without pain. So try hard to achieve success in life despite what life offers you.

Once a professor entered the classroom with a glass jar, rocks, pebbles, and sand. The students were amused to see what he was up to. First, he started filling the rock parts into the jar until he couldn’t add any more. He asked the students if the jar was full and everybody nodded yes. He then started putting the pebbles inside the jar which went inside through the small gaps and he shakes the jar to allow the pebbles to get into those vacant spaces in between the rocks. He asked the same question to the students and they again said that the jar was full. Finally, he poured the sand inside the jar which went through the minute gaps and got filled in the jar. The professor explained that this is how you should set priorities in life. Rock is like your family, while pebbles are like your career while sand is like the least priorities in life and unnecessary quarrels and egos. If you put sand on the jar first, it will get easily filled up leaving no space for rocks and pebbles.

Moral:You should identify your priorities in life and develop a good strategy to work towards fulfilling it rather than wasting your time and effort on unnecessary aspects of life.

One day a man was passing by a garden when he saw a butterfly cocoon which was about to get open. He saw a small opening on it and watched the several hours of struggles the butterfly came through to get the body out of it. After many hours, it seemed that the butterfly stopped trying as there was no progress. He thought to help the butterfly by cutting the cocoon with a scissor. So the butterfly came out easily but the wings were shriveled and the body was tiny and withered. Unfortunately, the butterfly was not able to take flight and spend the rest of life crawling with a wounded body.

Moral: This is nature’s way of telling the importance of struggles in life. Sometimes, different kinds of struggles are needed in life to make you stronger in the future. Never feel disappointed in life and stop trying when life offers you struggles but keep on fighting until you see success.

Once there was a king who was curious but wealthy. He decided to test his fellow people to know who has a got a good attitude in life and who would spare some time for country’s progress. He placed a huge boulder right at the middle of the road and hid in a nearby place to see if anyone would make an attempt to move it off. He saw some wealthy merchants and courtiers passing by the road. None of them made any attempt to move it off but simply walked away while some others blamed the king for not maintaining roads. Later, a peasant came the way with a load of vegetables and saw the boulder. He kept his load down and tried to move the boulder away. After strenuous effort, he succeeded in moving it away. He saw a purse lying in the place of the boulder. It contained many gold coins and a note from the king which read ‘this is the reward for the person who moves the boulder away’.

Moral: It is quite common for people to run away from problems and obstacles. But the story clearly shows the importance of seeing an opportunity in every obstacle which might improve our condition. Invest some time to remove obstacles on your way and experience many unseen presences.

A man and his donkey were on the way to grazing while the donkey fell into a huge pit. The man was shaken and tried hard to pull off his favorite donkey up to the ground. Despite his strenuous attempts, he failed to bring the donkey back. But he can’t leave the donkey to starve and die with pain for days. So he decided to bury him alive and make his death smoother. So he started pouring soil over the donkey in the pit. When he poured the soil, the donkey felt the load and shakes it off and he steps on it. He does the same every time when the soil was poured on his body. In the end, he reached the ground level and easily walked away to graze in the green pastures.

Moral: Don’t choose to live with your problem. Just shake off your problems and stand on it and step up in life after learning from them. Every bad experience is a new learning. So get the positives out of it and work towards your goals.

A psychology professor entered the classroom with half a glass of water in his hand. The students expected the old common question “was it half empty or half full?” But to the surprise, he asked them “How heavy is this glass of water?” The answers given by the students ranged from 7 oz. To 25 oz. But the professor replied that the actual weight of the glass with water doesn’t always matter but how long you hold the glass is what matters. If you hold the glass for a minute, you won’t feel much weight. But if you hold for 10 minutes, you will feel a little more weight and it gets heavier for you with hours. If you hold it for the entire day, then your hands would go numb and pain. Similar is the case when you carry stress with you. If you think about it for a while and leave it, then there is no problem but if you think about it for hours, it starts becoming a problem and it becomes worse if you sleep with it.

Moral: You should learn to let go of your stresses and never sleep with it. If you can do something about it, just do it. In the other case, just leave it and work towards your goals or else it just kills your productivity.

A speaker started off his seminar by showing a $20 to the public. He asked the people “who wants this?” There was no surprise to see that all of them lifted their hands. He offered to give the money to one of them but insisted that he will do something to it. He crumpled the paper money and showed it again to the crowd and repeated the question. Still, everyone raised the hands. He then put the money into the ground and stepped on it and then raised it again and offered it to the public. The people gathered there still showed interest to take that money despite seeing how dirty the note was. He told the public” No matter what I did to this money, you all still wanted this. You all went in favor of my offer just because the value of the money never decreased despite what all I did to it. Similarly, value yourself despite the painful conditions or failures”.

Moral: Believe in yourself and work hard to achieve success. Value yourself irrespective of the failures or obstacles and don’t degrade yourself just because of the temporary setbacks.

There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best in work and cut 18 trees in the first month and the king was glad. The next month he put in the same effort but could cut only 15 trees. And the third month, he still tried his best but could cut only 12 trees. The king visited him the third month and talked about his decrease in productivity. He explained that he might have lost his strength or got too old to do the work. The king asked him “when was the last time you sharpened your ax?” To the surprise, he has not even done it once in the last three months. That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees.

Moral: It is good that you put in a lot of effort and hard work to work towards your goals. But you should balance your life priorities and invest time with your family and save some time to relax which would boost up your productivity

Morning Assembly Program: Prayers, Thought, Pledge, Special Items, NEWS, Words, Sanskrit, Quiz, Bhasha Sangam, EBSB

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