Marshall McLuhan quotes - page 19

The suddenness of the leap from hardware to software cannot but produce a period of anarchy and collapse, especially in the developed countries. (Marshall McLuhan)
A successful book cannot afford to be more than ten percent new. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The real news is bad news. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Ads push the principle of noise all the way to the plateau of persuasion. They are quite in accord with the procedures of brainwashing. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Life. Consider the alternative. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The movie, by sheer speeding up of the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configurations and structure. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Innis sacrificed point of view and prestige to his sense of the urgent need for insight. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
He is setting up a mosaic configuration or galaxy for insight ... Innis makes no effort to "spell out" the interrelations between the components in his galaxy. He offers no consumer packages in his later work, but only do-it-yourself kits... View quote
Marshall McLuhan
As Innis got more insight he abandoned any mere point of view in his presentation of knowledge. View quote
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. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
There is nothing willful or arbitrary about the Innis mode of expression. (Marshall McLuhan)
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. (p.46) View quote
Marshall McLuhan
McLuhan after his September 1979 stroke. Brand, Stewart. "McLuhan's last words." New Scientist, 29 Jan 1981. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The human family now exists under conditions of a global village. We live in a single constricted space resonant with tribal drums. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The user is the content of any situation, whether its driving a car, or wearing clothes or watching a show. The user is content. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
PLAYBOY: A Columbia coed was recently quoted in Newsweek as equating you and LSD. "LSD doesn't mean anything until you consume it,” she said. "Likewise McLuhan.” Do you see any similarities? McLUHAN: I'm flattered to hear my work described as hallucinogenic, but I suspect that some of my academic critics find me a bad trip. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age, and thus, the complete break with five thousand years of mechanical technology. This I state over and over again. I do not say whether it is a good or bad thing. To do so would be meaningless and arrogant. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly. (p.73 of the 1966 Signet paperback edition) View quote
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. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly. (Marshall McLuhan)
Only the small secrets need to be protected. The large ones are kept secret by public incredulity. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's problems. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The successor to politics will be propaganda. Propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but as the impact of the whole technology of the times. View quote
Marshall McLuhan
Gutenberg made everybody a reader. Xerox makes everybody a publisher. View quote
Marshall McLuhan