Truthiness and the sayings of the enlightened ones

Today's online Buddhist quote struck my fancy, because I doubt the Buddha would have said the following 2500 years ago:

"All such notions as causation, succession, atoms, primary elements...are all figments of the imagination and manifestations of the mind." -Buddha

There is also a book that has been recommended to me entitled "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart D.Ehrman, that I intend to read. I must say there is controversy surrounding this book and I am not sure I want to be distracted by the controversy and there are many other books I will read before this one.

I was interested in the following response book, but probably not so much that I would want to woller in the controversy and lose sight of a quest for peace and spiritual growth.

You have to like the title of the second book though - I smile to think about it.

Getting back to the point of the post - is it truly knowable what was really said by someone in the ancient past? I am not sure about you, but I have a hard time remembering what I said twenty minutes ago. However, statements such as the Buddha quote above and many of the gospel messages maybe should be weighed more on their "truthiness" as coined on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.

In this regard, the quote attributed to Buddha above, feels as if it points to a fundamental truth to me - it touches some form of knowledge or understanding that I already possess, as we all possess.

Does it matter if the Buddha or Jesus really said a statement that provides spiritual growth and makes our ephemeral existence on this planet a truly rewarding one?