I always like to imagine the humans as very normal humans, farming (by the way, why don't towns have accompanying fields?) or trading to feed themselves, and not (for the commoner) not aspiring to a future of much more than hard, honest work and honest rewards, or maybe to make life safer and easier. Most of their really ambitious people become traders or adventurers.
Anyway, I always like to characterize them as being alarmed or disturbed by the dwarves tendency to eat cats and create magma deathtraps, but at the same time not really having any beef with them (and wondering at their crafts).
I always like to imagine the dwarves as being addicted to alcohol, and permanently buzzed. Again this being my DF image, they become 'drunk' when their blood-alcohol decreases. Normally they don't have a strong sense of duty- when a leader leads his country to grandeur, it's his grand. A dwarf who dutifully helps do anything that benefits the whole fortress is mostly looking for their own benefit in being part of a strong community; other dwarves being happy is a bonus (unless they're friends). Either that, or I slap on a samurai code of honor to explain their actions. Dwarves are almost always proud. I always imagine the mechanics as creatively-challenged Machiavellian villains, but their general wish to kill things is directed towards the enemy- besides, the mountainhome provides their resources.
Elves are backwards in their moral priorities, and bigots, but they want what's best. Of course, how dare any dwarf that lives in the rocks tell them what's best?! They see bodies only as a vessel for a soul, and it's just nutrients when dead- either to be eaten or returned to the soil for plants. How dare dwarves try to greedily keep the earth's materials?
Goblins are poor and mean (in the older sense of the word). Goblins are big kobolds, like wolves are big dogs. Their societies are a warrior hierarchy. Nothing too creative to speak of here. I can imagine them almost as good guys sometimes though, starving in their caves while they look at the dwarves' shining towers and +RENDITION OF AN ENGRAVING OF A CHEESE WEDGE+s, and trying to take what the dwarves have in abundance.