Buddah

A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. Buddha

Buddha was constantly trying to save people from the process of reincarnation that their former religion of Hindu said was a must to reach a more perfect state. He thought if you could notice that this world was mere illusion you could escape the reincarnation lessons and become self aware. He spent most of his waking life in the pursuit of helping others to learn this lesson. He even did not blame the man who gave him rotten meat unintentionally which actually killed him.

Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

Confucius, The Confucian Analects

Confucius was aware that virtue was the most important thing in keeping things together. He knew that violence begets violence and that it was better to teach through heroes and leaders having the proper virtue that through violence. In this way he was sure he could sway the thoughts of men.

Everything in this world is a marionette show. Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Yamamoto was in the mind that the world was constantly riddled with problems and uncertainty as in a marionette show. He thought the world was a very dark place maybe because he lost his master in the early part of his training, but I would classify his thoughts as similar to Murphy’s Law which states” Anything that can go wrong will.”

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity he believed the search for profit messed up the soul and had to be fixed. He thought people were born naturally good and the profit seeking was the downfall.

http://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/120/hsun_tzu.htm