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Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan Quotes

Philosopher

Marshall McLuhan was a renowned Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, and media theorist whose theories had a profound impact on modern media and communication technologies. His famous 'The Medium is the Message' theory, among others, has influenced the fields of advertising, film, television, and the internet.

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Famous Marshall McLuhan Quotes

“All the new media are art forms which have the power of imposing, like poetry, their own assumptions.”

Art Form Technology Media Assumption Imposing New Media

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“If men were able to be convinced that art is a precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology, would they all become artist? Or would they begin a careful translation of new art forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what would happem if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely, exact information of how to rearrange one's psyche in order to anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.”

Source: Understanding media: the extensions of man

“All forms of violence are quests for identity. When you live on the frontier, you have no identity. You're a nobody.”

Form Violence Identity Quests Frontiers

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“Cubism ('multi-locationalism') is one of the painterly forms of acoustic space.”

Form Space Acoustics Cubism

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“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.”

Ifs Art Action Form Environment Painting Art Is Works Of Art Blueprints New Environment

Book:Letters of Marshall McLuhan

Source: Letters of Marshall McLuhan

“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.”

Use Form Order Language Reader

Book:Marshall McLuhan: Roles, masks and performances

Source: Marshall McLuhan: Roles, masks and performances

“The laws of the media, in tetrad form, bring logos and formal cause up to date to reveal analytically the structure of all human artefacts.”

Humans Form Law Causes Media Structure Formal Logos Up To Date Artefacts

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“I am not a "culture critic" because I am not in any way interested in classifying cultural forms. I am a metaphysician, interested in the life of the forms and their surprising modalities. That is why I have no interest in the academic world.”

World Way Form Culture Interest Critics Academic Surprising Classifying

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“When information rubs against information the results are startling and effective. The perrenial quest for involvement, fill-in, takes many forms.”

Form Results Information Quests Involvement

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“The village had institutionalized all human functions in forms of low intensity.... Participation was high and organization was low. This is the formula for stability.”

Humans Country Form Lows Organization Function Village Formulas Stability Intensity Participation Country Life

Book:Understanding media: the extensions of man

Source: Understanding media: the extensions of man

“Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century.”

Art Form Business Journey Century Marketing Advertising 20th Century Adverts Great Advertising Advertising Business Advertisement Negative

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“In this electronic age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness.”

Age Moving Form Consciousness Technology Information Birthday Technological Extensions Keep Moving Forward

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire.”

Ifs Men Seems Might Spiritual Form Cities Information Currents Ancestor Translate Translations Suitable Nomadic

Book:Understanding media: the extensions of man

Source: Understanding media: the extensions of man

“In Tetrad form, the artifact is seen to be not neutral or passive, bur an active logos or utterance of the human mind or body that transforms the user and his ground.”

Mind Humans Body Form Media Active Human Mind Users Passive Utterance Logos Artifacts

Author:Marshall McLuhan

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

Form Media Limits Speed Electric

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“The greatest propaganda in the world is our mother tongue, that is what we learn as children, and which we learn unconsciously. That shapes our perceptions for life. That is propaganda at its most extreme form.”

World Children Form Mother Shapes Perception Extremes Tongue Propaganda Mother Tongue

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“I expect to see the coming decades transform the planet into an art form; the new man, linked in a cosmic harmony that transcends time and space, will sensuously caress and mold and pattern every facet of the terrestrial artifact as if it were a work of art, and man himself will become an organic art form.”

Ifs Men Art Form Space Planets Harmony Patterns Decades Works Of Art Cosmic End Times Linked Time And Space Mold Facets Caress Artifacts

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“Every innovation scraps its immediate predecessor and retrieves still older figures – it causes floods of antiques or nostalgic art forms and stimulates the search for museum pieces.”

Art Stills Form Causes Pieces Figures Innovation Museums Flood Nostalgic Scrap Predecessors Antiques

Book:Marshall McLuhan: The argument: causality in the electric world

Source: Marshall McLuhan: The argument: causality in the electric world

“We impose the form of the old on the content of the new.”

Book:The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects

Source: The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects

“Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth.”

Men World Way Use Body Form Desire Turns Wish Sex Wealth Technology Normal Machines Plant Evolve Organs Bees Providing New Ways Enabling Reciprocate Modifying Use Of Technology

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“The medium is the message" because it is the medium that shapes and controls the search and form of human associations and action.”

Humans Action Form Communication Shapes Messages Mediums Association

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“Our motor car is our supreme form of privacy when we are away from home.”

Home Form Car Supreme Privacy Motor Transport Away From Home Motor Cars

Author:Marshall McLuhan

“The rythms of typing favour short, concise sentences, sentences with oral form.”

Form Media Sentences Favour Typing Concise

Book:Counter blast [by] Marshall McLuhan

Source: Counter blast [by] Marshall McLuhan

“Language is a form of organized stutter.”

Form Language Definitions Organized

Author:Marshall McLuhan

About the Author

Born: July 21, 1911
Died: December 31, 1980
Known for: Philosopher
Quotes: 398

Related Topics

Media Men Technology World Art Environment Form People Information Humans Space Electric Mediums Way Patterns Social Age Ifs Today Artist

Popular Topics

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Books & Sources

Understanding media: the extensions of manRelated source material

The medium is the massage: an inventory of effectsRelated source material

Letters of Marshall McLuhanRelated source material

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic ManRelated source material

Media Research: Technology, Art and CommunicationRelated source material

Counter blast [by] Marshall McLuhanRelated source material

The Gutenberg GalaxyRelated source material

The Medium and the Light: Reflections on Religion and MediaRelated source material

Culture Is Our BusinessRelated source material

The Medium and the Light: Reflections on ReligionRelated source material

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