Sydney Pollack Quotes

It's important that we have a global perspective and look abroad and learn from our neighbors.

I wanted to work with people from the world, with different minds and different visions.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

The United States is a great, great country, but it's not the only country, and we can learn a great deal beyond our own shores.

I think Americans suffer for their lack of travel, awareness of the world. It has horribly warped our sense of place in the scheme of things.

So having a little more of an awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world I think is what many Canadians would hope for Americans.

If the people of the United States come to Iran and see its ancient history and nature of Iran, and the people of Iran go to the United States to see America, this can shorten the walls of mistrust and improve the situation for the future.

We must travel; we must go to foreign parts. We must see how the engine of society works in other countries, and keep free and open communication with what is going on in the minds of other nations, if we really want to be a nation again.

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Well, I think the United States first of all has to recognize the world for what it is.

No one's going to be able to operate without a grounding in the basic sciences. Language would be helpful, although English is becoming increasingly international. And travel. You have to have a global attitude.

Before I got into politics, I wanted to be a missionary to people in the Middle East. I thought it would be better to speak with them in their own language.

Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.

Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world also needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world.

I give lectures on globalization. I have lived on three continents. I have no quarrel with a global consciousness.

Spending years between America and Israel, I have gained a global view, and the planet is my home.

World Affairs Councils are great organizations. They help keep people throughout our country alive to important developments in world affairs and underscore that, in the country, we stay engaged and we are part of the world.

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.

I've been to China and Russia, and I don't know anything about Chinese or Soviet relations.

I'm thrilled of the acceptance I get abroad. The people are so hearty, warm and grateful and I feel privileged having seen so many countries and some of the greatest monuments.

I'm a military baby, so I kind of always see the world as one; we just have different colours, and we're from different places in the world.

I'm interested in internationalism. It's the new multiculturalism. How we deal with each other isn't sufficient any more. It's about time we examine how we interact with the rest of the world we live in.

We, as Americans, have so much to learn here. We have a shockingly low level of global awareness and familiarity and little idea of how the world sees us. And those disturbing facts keep getting us into a lot of trouble.

The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

We live in a globalising world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we'll never visit.