How do I make Emacs start without so much fanfare?

Question

Every time I start Emacs I see a page of help text and a bunch of messages suggesting that I try the tutorial. How do I stop this from happening?

Accepted Answer

Put the following in your `.emacs`:

```
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)
(setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message t)
```

Solution