Virtue, Confucius

To be able to practise five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

- Confucius, Analects, fifth century B.C.

Essence, John Adams

When we say that God is a spirit, we know what we mean, as well as we do when we say that the pyramids of Egypt are matter. Let us be content, therefore, to believe him to be a spirit, that is, an essence that we know nothing of, in which originally and necessarily reside all energy, all power, all capacity, all activity, all wisdom, all goodness.

- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (17 January 1820)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Essence

Passion, Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

- Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Journal Intime, entry for December 17, 1856 (1882).

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Passion