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Marshall McLuhan
394 quotes
“In an age of multiple and massive innovations, obsolescence becomes the major obsession.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Innovation is obsolete", Evergreen review, Volume 15, Issues 86-94, Grove Press, 1971, p. 64
“The reader is the content of any poem or of the language he employs, and in order to use any of these forms, he must put them on.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Roles, Masks, and Performances", New Literary History, Vol. 2, No. 3, Performances in Drama, the Arts, and Society (Spring, 1971), p. 520
“The user of the electric light -- or a hammer, or a language, or a book -- is the content. As such, there is a total metamorphosis of the user by the interface. It is the metamorphosis that I consider the message.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
“The percept takes priority of the concept.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Edward T. Hall, 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 397
“After childhood, the senses specialize via the channels of dominant technologies and social weaponries.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to The Listener October 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 443
“My method is vertical rather than horizontal so the scenery does not change but the texture does.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to The Listener October 1971, Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 318
“Obsolescence is the moment of superabundance.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Yeats studies, Issue 2, Irish University Press, 1972, p. 135
“The bias of each medium of communication is far more distorting than the deliberate lie.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: JQ. Journalism quarterly, Volume 50, Association for Education in Journalism, 1973, p. 145
“The media have substituted themselves for the older world.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Education, Language, and Media". Cycle 7, 1973, p. 232
“The most human thing about us is our technology.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Man and the future of organizations, Volume 5, School of Business Administration, Georgia State University, 1974, p. 19
“The bible belt is oral territory and therefore despised by the literati.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Critic, Volume 33, Thomas More Association, 1974, p. 12
“Pornography and violence are by-products of societies in which private identity has been...destroyed by sudden environmental change.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
“Pornography and obscenity...work by specialism and fragmentation. They deal with a figure without a ground -- situations in which the human factor is suppressed in favor of sensations and kicks.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
“Any loss of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by violence. Today, the electric revolution, the wired planet, and the information environment involve everybody in everybody to the point of individual extinction.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Clare Westcott, November 26 1975. Letters of Marshall McLuhan, p. 514
“Violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Violence in the media." Canadian Forum. Volume 56, 1976, p. 9
“Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoted in Advertising Age, Sep. 3, 1976
“Try not to have Emily exposed to hours and hours of TV. It is a vile drug which permeates the nervous system, especially in the young.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to son Eric McLuhan, regarding one of Eric's daughters, 1976
“I heard what you were saying. You - you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cameo appearance as himself in Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall
“One of the things that happens at the speed of light is that people lose their goals in life. So what takes the place of goals and objectives? Well, role-playing is coming in very fast.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview between Californian Governor Jerry Brown and Marshall McLuhan, 1977
“The discarnate TV user lives in a world between fantasy and dream, and is in a typically hypnotic state, which is the ultimate form and level of participation.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Last Look at the Tube." New York Magazine, 17 March 1978, p. 45-48
“You don't like those ideas? I got others!”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: full lecture The Medium is the Message 1977 part 1 v3 around 14:23 into ABC TV, Monday Conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaH51F4HBw&feature=player_embedded
“The "tragic flaw" is not a detail of characterization, a mere "fly in the ointment", but a structural feature of ordinary consciousness. (p.45)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jacques Ellul observes in Propaganda: When dialogue begins, propaganda ends. His theme, that propaganda is not this or that ideology but rather the action and coexistence of all media at once, explains why propaganda is environmental and invisible. The total life of any culture tends to be "propaganda", for this reason. It blankets perception and supresses awareness, making the counter environments created by the artist indispensable to survival and freedom. (p.77)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All media of communications are cliches serving to enlarge man's scope of action, his patterns of associations and awareness. These media create environments that numb our powers of attention by sheer pervasiveness.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disarmament is illogical and futile, unless one is prepared to regard the available means of production and social organization as affording unique social ends. To divert electrical energy and circuitry into atomic bombs shows the same imaginative power as wiring the dining-room chairs to enable one to electrocute the sitter in the event that he might prove hostile. It is part of the age-old habit of using new means for old purposes instead of discovering what are the new goals contained in the new means. (p.202)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“World War I was a railway war of centralism and encirclement. World War II was a radio war of decentralism. World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation. (p.66)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The newspaper is a corporate symbolist poem, environmental and invisible, as poem.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since Sputnik there is no Nature. Nature is an item contained in a man-made environment of satellites and information.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The telegraph press mosaic is acoustic space as much as an electric circus.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Acoustic space is totally discontinuous, like touch. It is a sphere without centers or margins.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One touch of nature makes the whole world tin.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Privacy invasion is now one of biggest knowledge industries. (p. 24)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The content or time-clothing of any medium or culture is the preceding medium or culture. (p. 168)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chinese script is not visual but iconic and tactile. It does not disturb the tribal bonds. (p. 72)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only cool PR is provided by one's enemies. They toil incessantly and for free. (88)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the evolutionary process shifts from biology to software technology the body becomes the old hardware environment. The human body is now a probe, a laboratory for experiments. (p. 180)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tactility is space of the interval.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Visual space is the space of detachment. Audile-tactile space is the space of involvement. (p. 194)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Audile-tactile space is the space of involvement. We lose "touch" without it. Visual space is the space of detachment.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The existential trauma had a physical basis in the first electric extension of our nervous system.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Concept of Dread, by Soren Kierkegaard, appeared in 1844, first year of the commercial telegraph...It mentions the telegraph as a reason for dread and nowness or existenz.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Eskimo, like any pre-literate, leaps easily from the Paleolithic stone age to the electric age, by-passing the Neolithic specialism.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As the totem pole is tied to the lineality of the missionaries' Bible, so the igloo was made possible by the primus stove.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since Sputnik, the earth has been wrapped in a dome-like blanket or bubble. Nature ended.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cartoons drove the photo back to myth and dream screen.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Color is not so much a visual as a tactile medium.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The young are really the heirs to a generation of incompetence.”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this book we turn to the study of new patterns of energy arising from man’s physical and psychic artifacts and social organizations. The only method for perceiving process and pattern is by inventory of effects obtained by the comparison and contrast of developing situations. (p. 8)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hypnotized by their rear-view mirrors, philosophers and scientists alike tried to focus the figure of man in the old ground of nineteenth-century industrial mechanism and congestion. They failed to bridge from the old figure to the new. It is man who has become both figure and ground via the electrotechnical extension of his awareness. With the extension of his nervous system as a total information environment, man bridges art and nature. (p. 11)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By involving all men in all men, by the electric extension of their own nervous systems, the new technology turns the figure of the primitive society into a universal ground that buries all previous figures. (p. 25)”
Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source