Marshall McLuhan Quotations:

From The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects

“Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of ‘time’ and ‘space’ and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men. It has reconstituted dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change…”

In an electronic information environment / minority groups can no longer be contained-ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation.” (p. 24).

“Time has ceased. Space has vanished. We now live in a global village… a simultaneous happening.”

“The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future…” (74-75).

“In the name of the ‘progress’, our official culture is striving to force new media to do the work of the old.” (p.81)

Other quotations:

“We are increasingly living in the global village.”

“With telephone and TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is being sent.”

“When a thing is current it creates currency.”

“If it works, it’s obsolete.”

“Tomorrow is our permanent address.”

“The peculiar and abstract manipulation of information is a means of creating wealth.”

“The user is the content.”

“The future of the book is the blurb.”

“The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.”

”Technologies are not simply inventions which people employ but are the means by which people are re-invented.”

“Once we 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 have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth’s atmosphere to a company as a monopoly.”