Wow, sorry about that. No drama intended. However, drama ensued. Again, my apologies.
Did I think twice before posting the question? Indeed, because I respect the site, and did not want to post a question which would be deemed off-topic. However, I was genuinely intrigued by the use or non-use of the phrase in English today. So I took the chance. I knew someone here could answer the question.
As if that were not enough, OP finally accepts an highly upvoted answer which has really nothing to do with the supposed original question (the one about the current usage of the famous sentence).
I thought the prevailing opinion on most SE sites is that the OP is free to pick the answer that is most helpful to the OP. That was, in fact, the most helpful answer to me. I awarded a bounty on another user who supplied a helpful answer, with a reference to boot. I upvoted every answer. I appreciate that people took time to answer the question. I would have awarded another bounty to another good answer, but the bounty system demanded that I double the bounty award, and I didn't want to suggest that the first bounty recipient's answer was less worthy than a more bountiful bounty's recipient, so I did not do so. But I expressed my thanks in comments.
Should I apologize for my choice of answers? I'm not too proud to do that. I'm sorry that my choice offended you (whomever was offended.) I sincerely meant no offense.
I might add that the OP of this meta question was only too happy to jump on the question with an answer which I immediately upvoted. When another answer took the lead, the OP deleted his perfectly acceptable answer.
Unfortunately, it leads me to ponder Aesop's sour grapes in this entire scenario.
... as suggested by the high rep and highly esteemed OP...
Please don't kid yourself. Rep does not confer esteem, and I don't consider myself to be highly esteemed here. If I am - by any - I hope it is/was for better reasons than rep (e.g. integrity would be nice), which is easy to accumulate by an enthusiastic and/or attentive and/or persistent and/or long-time user.
...a turning point in the “off-topic” history of ELU?
Clearly I'm missing something here, but that's not a surprise. I missed this question for nine days.