Marshall McLuhan Quotes

Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar (1911–1980)

Herbert Marshall McLuhan (21 July 1911 – 31 December 1980) was a Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist.

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Native Name: Herbert Marshall McLuhan

Alternative Names: Marshall MacLuhan • Marshall Mac Luhan

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In Jesus Christ, there is no distance or separation between the medium and the message: it is the one case where we can say that the medium and the message are fully one and the same.

As forms, as media, the book and the newspaper would seem to be as incompatible as any two media could be. The owners of media always endeavor to give the public what it wants, because they sense that their power is in the medium and not in the message or the program.

Scribal culture could have neither authors nor publics such as were created by typography. (p. 149)

The divorce of poetry and music was first reflected by the printed page. (p. 227)

At electric speed, all forms are pushed to the limits of their potential.

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.

If a work of art is to explore new environments, it is not to be regarded as a blueprint but rather as a form of action-painting.

The percept takes priority of the concept.

Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions.

The mask, like the side-show freak, is mainly participatory rather than pictorial in its sensory appeal. (p. 352)

The classified ads (and stock-market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold. Radio and TV can handle the sports, news, comics, and pictures. The editorial, which is the one book-feature of the newspaper, has been ignored for many years, unless put in the form of news or paid advertisement.

The invention of printing did away with anonymity, fostering ideas of literary fame and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property. (p. 122)

Current concern with reading and spelling reform steers away from visual to auditory stress. (p. 54)

Typography is not only a technology but is in itself a natural resource or staple, like cotton or timber or radio; and, like any staple, it shapes not only private sense ratios but also patterns of communal interdependence. (p. 186)

All words, in every language, are metaphors.