A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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Cultures like ours, poised at the point of transformation, engender both tragic and comic awareness in great abundance. It is the maximal interplay of diverse forms of perception and experience that makes great the cultures of the fifth century B.C., the sixteenth century, and the twentieth century.
Understanding Media, 1964, MIT/Routledge, p 154 
Quote #614
Year: 1964
Chapters: Between Two Ages | Today’s Transition
↪ Also at #6909

Drawn to McLuhan #15

Small black-and-white illustration of a Revolutionary War general striding into a modern military briefing room full of contemporary officers.
“We live centuries ahead of our thinking.”
Two-panel illustration pairing a prehistoric group drumming and singing around a campfire with modern college students singing together on headphones.
“We live by music.”
Cartoon of a grinning man in a suit running down a suburban street holding up a glowing laptop that reads EUREKA!
“Twentieth century man runs down the street shouting, I have the answers! What are the questions?”
Illustration of pedestrians on a busy sidewalk, each marked with a large yellow lightning bolt, absorbed in their phones outside coffee, tech, and news shops.
“The word serenity isn’t even applicable in an age like ours.”
Row of eight framed portraits on a brick wall, progressing from smiling graduates in caps to figures in increasingly tall dunce caps.
“The ignorance of how to use new knowledge stockpiles exponentially.”
Photograph of a contemporary dance class, pairs of dancers in acrobatic partnered poses filling a sunlit studio floor.
“Space is not a cavity to be filled but a possibility to be shaped.”
Cartoon of a father and son on a couch pointing excitedly at a TV showing a fantasy sports betting broadcast with player stats and odds.
“New sports will include the audience in the action.”
Three-panel illustration showing a father helping a boy roll a metal hoop, the boy running it down a sidewalk with a stick, and a grown man hula-hooping in a backyard.
“Invention, in a word, is a translation of one kind of space into another.”
Sepia-toned illustration of a man in a leather jacket standing with a raised fist between two towering stacks of books lining a cobblestone street.
“I am an intellectual thug who has been slowly accumulating a private arsenal with every intention of using it.” (in a 1950 letter to Ezra Pound)
Cartoon of a father reclining on a couch reading a book with his feet up while a baby cries on the floor nearby and an unanswered rotary telephone rings loudly on a side table.
“A man’s home is his hassle.”
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan