The title alludes to the second line of a speech from one of Shakespeare's plays.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56968/speech-friends-...

Interesting. I've read/watched a bit of shakespear but literally never even heard of this.

I've noticed that Shakespeare's history plays get much less time in school than the comedies and tragedies.

As others pointed out it's (mis)quoting shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It is worth mentioning that I hope one day we (HN?) will be quoting code - that some portions of code (maybe elegant implementations of encryption or quadratic voting) will become canon just as shakespeare is taught in schools.

It's always been a worry that if more people can quite shakespeare than do long division or understand a car engine then we will have "uninformed" decisions.

I am dubious about that - I think of elections are meaningful, the populace takes them seriously and self informs to a level they are happy with (!) but anyway I like the idea that some of the Linux Kernel maybe in peoples heads enough to pop up in middle age

It was around 700 years from Beowulf to Shakespeare, so using English literature as a measuring stick, we have plenty of time yet.