https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html
from a thousand years and more before the Buddha 
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Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person’s mind. ~ Banana Yoshimoto
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“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”
William Blake
“That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature.”
Ramana Marharshi
Two quotes - how “Buddhist” are these?
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Quite the opposite: impermanent.
This would have to be heavily qualified so as not to become itself an object of clinging.
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Ramana Maharshi, with all due respect, taught about a formless, eternal, and ever-peaceful Self along the lines of non-dual Advaita and other expressions in the later Upanishads.
In DN1, SN 22.94, and other suttas the Buddha listed this as a type of wrong view, along with a number of other wrong views, with viññana, consciousness, taught as being conditional.
There have been a number of debates, including posts on D&D, about whether parinibbāna is a kind of ever-blissful awareness that is unrelated to the senses and any conditions (Ven. Thanissaro, “The Truth of Rebirth” for example), and others who say the teachings point to extinguishment/cessation, full stop.
So the quote by the Maharshi could indirectly reflect a view taken by some Buddhists (who of course do not use “Self”). But finding support for this in the Nikayas appears to be dicey.
Some references that may be of interest:
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Here’s a small collection of what I got…
“After a time you may find that ‘having’ is not so pleasing a thing after all as ‘wanting’. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
-Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Star Trek, S02, Ep. 01, “Amok Time”
“Don’t spend your time lookin’ around for something you want that can’t be found. When you find out you can live without it and go along not thinkin’ about it. I’ll tell you something true, the bare necessities of life will come to you.”
-Baloo The Bear (The Jungle Book), Songwriter Terry Gilkyson
“Identity is a cheap substitute for character.”
-Keri Smith
"I don’t want to be part of a world, where being kind is a weakness.
-Keanu Reeves
“It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams”
-Don DeLillo
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
-Philip K. Dick
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
-Warren Buffett
“Art doesn’t help people, people help people.”
-Anonymous
“If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.”
-Bertrand Russell
“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”
-Francis Bacon
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
-Anonymous
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
-Thomas A. Edison
“In the search for truth human beings take two steps forward and one step back. Suffering, mistakes and weariness of life thrust them back, but the thirst for truth and stubborn will drive them forward. And who knows? Perhaps they will reach the real truth at last.”
-Antonchekhov, The Duel
Do not expect profit from the work of others.
-Richard Heart
“Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.”
-R.D. Laing
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
-Hans Christian Andersen
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
-Yoda, Star Wars
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
There is enough ignorance on this planet to fill the entire cosmos.
-Devin Quinn
“You will never find time for anything.
If you want time you must make it.”
-Charles Buxton
I choose my path, but it’s a pity that I did not find similar understanding in the people among whom I wished to find it most of all … "
-Keanu Reeves
“It’s as if there is a slave ship drum beating in my heart for no reason.”
-Duncan Trussell
“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”
-Unknown
Every mistake I ever made started with “It’s too good to be true.”
-Anonymous
"When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
-Tyrion Lannister
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.”
-Stuart Chase
“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is.
And you must bend to its power or live a lie.”
-Miyamoto Musashi
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
-Mark Twain
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
-Marcus Aurelius
“Many rounds of merriment and pleasure have passed, soon it will be evening. Now drunk with tears, rest and see. Before long it will be too late to finish the journey.”
-Laos Folk Saying
“Starve your distractions, feed your focus.”
-Daniel Goleman
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start now and make a brand new ending.”
-Carl Bard
“If you have to ask you will never know, if you know you need only ask.”
-Helena Ravenclaw
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Baloo is not Buddhists?! Now I need to find a new guru… 
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O Bulleya, what are you trying to catch up in the skies?
You can’t even catch the one sitting at home.
Going to Mecca is not enough,
even if hundreds of prayers are read.
Going to the Ganga river is not enough,
even after hundreds of cleansings.
Going to Gaya is not enough,
even if hundreds of verses are read out.
Bulle Shah, it is enough when,
conceit is lost from the heart.
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Spinoza as Freud as Stoic as Buddha
Hi @JoeL This thread is for quotes and wisdom that is more or less compatible with or evocative of Buddhist teaching, but is from a non-Buddhist source, it is not a https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/ type of exercise, the linked video is an excerpt from the very wonderful The Great Philosophers, a BBC program hosted by Brian Magee, which can be watched in it’s entirety on Youtube here: Bryan Magee - The Great Philosophers - YouTube and shows the distinguished moral philosopher Anthony Quinton explaining Spinoza’s view of free will in a way that should be of interest to those of us who are interested in early Buddhist philosophy.
I find it very healthy and interesting to try and understand the western philosophical tradition, as it bears heavily on the contemporary western reception of Buddhism, and is also an interesting and thought provoking subject in it’s own right.
Good luck with your journey.
Metta.
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One thought came to me - that even if words have meanings underneath them, they are not as important as what kamma they have
If a set of words leads us to peace, dispassion, to loving kindness - these are the most Buddhist words - liberating from suffering
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I don’t want to believe. I want to know.
Carl Sagan
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O fortuna, first of the Carmina Burana, is a great reminder about impermanence (here in English translation):
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
ever waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
playing with mental clarity;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.Fate – monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.Fate is against me
in health
and virtue,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!
Please find here the original in medieval Latin.
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that sounds very Buddhist doesn’t it!
Metta
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“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius
“If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”
― Seneca the Younger
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Winnie 
Wh144-6 — Schopenhauer i buddyzm (bps.lk)
example:
Therefore in most cases the will must be broken by the greatest personal suffering before its self-denial appears. We then see the man suddenly retire into himself, after he is brought to the verge of despair through all the stages of increasing affliction with the most violent resistance. We see him know himself and the world, change his whole nature, rise above himself and above all suffering, as if purified and sanctified by it, in inviolable peace, bliss, and sublimity, willingly renounce everything he formerly desired with the greatest vehemence, and gladly welcome death. It is the gleam of silver that suddenly appears from the purifying flame of suffering, the gleam of the denial of the will-to-live, of salvation. Occasionally we see even those who were very wicked purified to this degree by the deepest grief and sorrow; they have become different, and are completely converted. Therefore, their previous misdeeds no longer trouble their conscience, yet they gladly pay for such misdeeds with death, and willingly see the end of the phenomenon of that will that is now foreign to and abhorred by them.” W.W.R. I, 39I-3, §68
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“People have the strength to overcome their bodies. Their beauty is in their minds.”
- Peter Gabriel
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