“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”
Technology
“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.”
EducationAll Quotes by Marshall McLuhan
“Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.”
Environmental“Art is anything you can get away with.”
Art“The photograph reverses the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.”
Travel“The business of the advertiser is to see that we go about our business with some magic spell or tune or slogan throbbing quietly in the background of our minds.”
Business“If the nineteenth century was the age of the editorial chair, ours is the century of the psychiatrist's couch.”
Age“Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior.”
Experience“Money is a poor man's credit card.”
Money“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“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools and yesterday's concepts.”
Age“Mass transportation is doomed to failure in North America because a person's car is the only place where he can be alone and think.”
Alone“A commercial society whose members are essentially ascetic and indifferent in social ritual has to be provided with blueprints and specifications for evoking the right tone for every occasion.”
Society“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”
Communication“Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”
Art“Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century.”
Art“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”
Art“Money is just the poor man's credit card.”
Money“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.”
Education“Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.”
Politics“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of 'do it yourself.'”
Age