Can the Python interpreter welcome message be suppressed?

Question

Instead of:

$ python
Python 2.7.2 (default, Oct 11 2012, 20:14:37)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple Clang 4.0 (tags/Apple/clang-418.0.60)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

I'd like, for example:

$ python --quiet
>>>

Answer 1

You can try this:

$ python -ic ""
>>> 

Answer 2

I have a startup file, so this works for me:

python -i "$PYTHONSTARTUP"

Although Python 3 now has a -q flag:

python3 -q