“Wherever moral ambition exists, there right exists.
And moral ambition itself must be presumed present in subconsciousness, even when the conscious self seems to reject it, so long as society has resources for bringing it into action; in much the same way that the life-saver presumes life to exist in the drowned man until he has exhausted his resources for recovering respiration.”

Original: (it) Ogni ambizione ha le sue difficoltà. Nella vita le cose semplici non esistono.
Source: prevale.net

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 63

Source: The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society, Ch. V: Democracy

Letter to the minister of a church in Brooklyn (20 November 1950), p. 95. The minister had earlier written Einstein asking if he would send him a signed version of a quote about the Catholic church attributed to Einstein in Time magazine (see the "Misattributed" section below), and Einstein had written back to say the quote was not correct, but that he was "gladly willing to write something else which would suit your purpose". According to the book, the minister replied "saying he was glad the statement had not been correct since he too had reservations about the historical role of the Church at large", and said that "he would leave the decision to Einstein as to the topic of the statement", to which Einstein replied with the statement above.
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education. The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

Variant: The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.
Source: A Clockwork Orange

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist. And he requires shelter, for there are frightful powers which continuously break in upon him, powers which oppose scientific "truth" with completely different kinds of "truths" which bear on their shields the most varied sorts of emblems.

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.398

No Name in the Street (1972)
Context: The prison is overcrowded, the calendars full, the judges busy, the lawyers ambitious, and the cops zealous. What does it matter if someone gets trapped here for a year or two, gets ruined here, goes mad here, commits murder or suicide here? It's too bad, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I do not claim that everyone in prison here is innocent, but I do claim that the law, as it operates, is guilty, and that the prisoners, therefore, are all unjustly imprisoned. Is it conceivable, after all, that any middle-class white boy -- or, indeed, almost any white boy -- would have been arrested on so grave a charge as murder, with such flimsy substantiation, and forced to spend, as of this writing, three years in prison? What force, precisely, is operating when a prisoner is advised, requested, ordered, intimidated, or forced, to confess to a crime he has not committed, and promised a lighter sentence for so perjuring and debasing himself? Does the law exist for the purpose of furthering the ambitions of those who have sworn to uphold the law, or is it seriously to be considered as a moral, unifying force, the health and strength of a nation?