I don't mind the idea of quotes when I load the Mint console, however the OEM text leaves much to be desired.  I'd like to update the quote text with inspirational or otherwise useful quotes.   How would I go about doing that?
Change (not remove) fortunes in Linux Mint console
command line;linux mint
Editing Linux Mint fortunes! (Mint 13) has some good information for how to tweak what fortunes are displayed.In specific, it appears they are stored in /usr/share/cowsay/cows (as plain text, preformatted) with .cow extension.There's more information in the link.