Themes:

Growing up and Maturing:

“Adults tend to repress their pleasure. Sad to say, I think we become adults only through disappointment, grief, and lies. So of course gradually we become tough, less sensitive.” ― Jean-Louis Gassee. This shows that when people grow up, they don’t care anymore about people anymore, and they are less sensitive to people when they are treated badly.
“One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.”- Virginia Woolf. Jem really shows this when he starts really taking responsibility with everything he does later in the book.
“Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that.”-Walt Disney. This is really how Atticus is when he treats Jem and Scout. He sees them through their eyes and he sees them as equal people who are growing up and can see their problems.
“Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating. Youngsters need good models more than they need critics. It's one of a parent's greatest responsibilities and opportunities.”- John Wooden. Atticus is a real role model for Jem and Scout by showing them how working with somebody who isn’t their own race isn’t a bad thing.

Respect:

“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” ― Albert Einstein. This is like Atticus with Tom Robinson and how he treats Tom as if he was white too and not somebody different.
“As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it, whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. This is how Atticus shows Jem and Scout to treat everybody the same and anybody that does do racist things to people, is messed up.
“When we treat people merely as they are, they will remain as they are. When we treat them as if they were what they should be, they will become what they should be. ” ― Thomas S. Monson, Pathways to Perfection: Discourses Of Thomas S. Monson. Atticus, unlike other people in the town, shows this by treating all the African-Americans the same way as he would treat the whites in the town.
“Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one's parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.”- Alice Miller. This is basically the exact opposite of Atticus he shows a whole lot of respect to Jem and Scout. This is what Atticus really practices with his kids and whoever he is with.

Everybody is equal:

“’Shoot all the blue jays you want, but remember, it is a sin to kill a mockingbird”’(103) This supports everybody is equal because it shows that the blacks are treated much different than the whites were.
“You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.”-Arthur Ashe. When Jem and Scout get into the court, they realize that people are really mean and not equal to African-Americans. Like when there was all the evidence that Bob Ewell beat his daughter, they proved Tom guilty when he really wasn’t.
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact”-Honore De Balzac. This is basically Atticus’s point to the kids when he is trying to explain that white people don’t treat the African-Americans equally, even though they didn’t do anything wrong.
“All men are created equal, it is only men themselves who place themselves above equality.” -David Allan Coe. When Jem asks why they don’t let women in the jury, he says because they would ask too many questions. They also think they are not good enough to sit there so they are being not equal to women and African- Americans.

Courage:

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do" (128). This shows that Atticus knows that anybody can have courage doing something that doesn’t involve hurting people.
“Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.”-Winston Churchill. This compares Atticus in the court case because he can’t find success, he has to earn it. Failure wasn’t fatal, he tried his best because he had the courage to do so.
“Courage is not living without fear. Courage is being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway.”-Chae Richardson. This is when Atticus took the case. He may have been scared to death but did it anyways because he knew he needed to take it because it was important to him.
“Wealth lost-something lost; Honor lost-much lost; Courage lost-all lost.” –Old German Proverb. This is how Atticus sees the case because he sees that if he doesn’t do it, his courage would be gone and he wouldn’t be able to do anything else right.

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