Viggo Mortensen Quotes

I look at my job as looking at the world from points of view that are different from mine - sometimes radically different from mine.

Pluralism matters because life is not worth living without new experiences - new people, new places, new challenges. But discipline matters too; we cannot simply treat life as a psychedelic trip through a series of novel sensations.

Having traveled a lot and met people from different horizons it makes you more humble and ready to listen.

I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you've got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.

I'm from a neighborhood that isn't amazing - it's not the worst, either - and I was happy. But Atlanta is just one area of a country. There's a world out there I wanna touch.

Growing up in any big city, you get exposed to so many beautiful cultures. I've grown up with a lot of open eyes around me that's influenced my eyes to open.

You know, the more you can meet people from different walks of life, the better it is for you. I think the more you can create situations and experiences that give you new perspective, the better.

By going to the movies, and because of other things, too, going to college, making a wide variety of friends, moving around traveling, I became a lot more open-minded than the heritage I was born into might have suggested.

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life.

Diversity is not a skin thing, necessarily. Diversity is you have people around the table who have different backgrounds and different experiences and think differently.

To have a diverse set of perspectives and backgrounds enables you to understand the market at large much more effectively.

I think people with varying experiences need to be creating.

Because of work, I travel a lot, and because of that, I can experience different cultures and see and talk to a lot of different people, so I get inspired by that a lot.

One of my strengths is I learn, and I like to learn from all sorts of people in all walks of life.

Basically, we are all different and we all have something to learn and it doesn't mean people need to change who you are but one should be open to new things and, above all, tolerance and understanding are essential for growth and happiness.

I'm always learning when I'm surrounded by great people. In every experience, I feel like I'm learning. I'm not like, "Oh good. I'm done! I don't have to learn anymore."

I love different kinds of movies, and I love different kinds of people. That's the spice of life.

I had to introduce a lot of people into my writing environment which I thought at first I would find really difficult, but I actually found that I loved it. It meant that I was meeting different people; it meant that I was expressing myself in different ways.

One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language.

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy.

Everybody has their own approach. I don't adhere to any one philosophy. I learn a lot from life and people - watching and other people watching.

I've learned a lot just being around people who grew up so differently from me, which is cool. It teaches you how to be a lot more tolerant. The bigger your world is, the more tolerant and accepting you become, because you have friends from all walks of life. You learn to be a little bit less selfish.

People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t

Over the last thirty years or so, I have definitely become more enlightened about corners of the social spectrum that I had less exposure to as a young man. I've interacted with more poor people, more minorities and more sexual minorities. As you get more people from different backgrounds involved in your life, you get a broader perspective and you're less cavalier about your opinions.

I think I have terminal curiosity. So I always think that the future will be better and different than the past. As I look back and take inventory of myself, I'm very open-minded and flexible. People say the older you get, you get set in your ways. I don't think so.