"It was a splendid population - for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home - you never find that sort of people among pioneers - you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day - and when she projects a new surprise the grave world smiles as usual and says, "Well, that is California all over."

Source: Mark Twain (2017). “Mark Twain, the Globetrotter: Complete Travel Books, Memoirs & Anecdotes (Illustrated Edition): A Tramp Abroad, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, Old Times on the Mississippi, Life on the Mississippi, Following the Equator & Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion, With Author’s Biography”, p.999, e-artnow