Robert A. Burton

“Though not necessarily aware of when we feel purpose and meaning, we are nearly always aware of the sickening feeling when we don't possess them. This isn't an intellectual misapprehension; it is a gut sense of disorientation and a loss of personal direction. Rarely are brute mental effort and self-help pep talks able to rekindle the missing feeling. For most of us, we simply wait patiently, knowing from past experience that the feeling will return in its own sweet time . . . Of particular interest is [Tolstoy's] conclusion as to the inability of science and reason to provide a personal sense of meaning.”

“Imagine how different dialogue might be with future generations raised on the idea that there are biological constraints on our ability to know what we know. To me, that is our only hope.”

“If a conservationist has more stathmin, less risk-taking gene, and the pro-drilling advocate has less stathmin, more risk-taking gene, how can the two have a reasonable dialogue?”