“Ours is a useful trade, a worthy calling. With all its lightness and frivolity; it has one serious purpose, one aim, one specialty: the deriding of shams—the exposure of pretentious falsities, the laughing of stupid superstitions out of existence. And that whoso is, by instinct, engaged in this sort of warfare is the natural enemy of royalties, nobilities, privileges and all kindred swindles and the natural friend of human rights and human liberties.”

          --Mark Twain, writing about his work as a critic and satirist