A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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The only possibility in an oral structure is a monarchical apex of control. Where the activities of many are to be orchestrated there can be only one conductor. But the more necessary the conductor the more expendable he becomes.
“The Organization Man”, Explorations 8, October (1957),; the issue was later reprinted as Verbi-Voco-Visual, (1967), without pagination.
Quote #1450
Year: 1957
Chapter: Democracy
At the very beginning, in 1450, the printed word already had all the essential characteristics of modern movies. The movie today is at once the fulfillment and a kind of reversal of the nature of print invented five hundred years ago.
“The Electronic Revolution in North America” (1959), p 7
Quote #4786
Year: 1959
Chapter: Movies

Drawn to McLuhan #8

Illustration of a broken, spring-exposed psychiatrist's couch with stuffing spilling out, beneath a framed diploma reading "Dr. Aris T. Otle, M.D., Psychiatry & Neurology."
“The psychiatrist’s couches of the world are sagging with people who have lost their sense of identity.”
Illustration of four large presidential-style stone monument faces, resembling Mount Rushmore, cracking apart on a frozen, fractured lake surface as ice skaters glide across it.
“The old mythology is disintegrating: to survive is to remythologize.”
Illustration of a man in a hoodie reading "YAY ME!" waving cash in the air while suspended as a marionette controlled by a giant money-bag puppeteer, surrounded by a cheering crowd.
“The man of great wealth in the new information world is a puppet employee of his own wealth.”
Illustration of a professor at a classroom lectern addressing students, chalkboards covered in equations behind him, with a speech bubble containing the quote text.
“That question is so stupid that it deserves an answer.”
Four-panel illustrated sequence of a man in an armchair tossing paired coin-like tokens labeled "Learning/Ignorance," "White/Black," "Public/Privacy," and "Affluence/Poverty" across a study.
“Learning creates ignorance. / White creates black. / The public creates privacy. / Affluence creates poverty.”
Illustration of a bespectacled man in a cluttered study scratching his head in confusion while writing at a desk piled with books, one titled "Understanding Media," beneath a sign reading "The Sense-Presses."
“I don’t pretend to understand my stuff. After all, my writing is very difficult.”
Illustration of a man in a tweed jacket and bow tie operating a humanoid robot backstage near a curtained stage with a microphone stand, evoking a ventriloquist and his dummy.
“But a conscious computer would still be one that was an extension of our consciousness, as a telescope is an extension of our eyes, or as a ventriloquist's dummy is an extension of the ventriloquist.”
Illustrated scene of a man in a suit reading papers while seated in an armchair, suspended by a mechanical tonearm on the surface of an oversized vinyl record labeled "Side A."
“Are you in the groove? That is, are you moving in ever-diminishing circles?”
Illustration of a man meditating cross-legged on a rock amid a devastated, cracked cityscape with toppled buildings and a leaning clock tower; a thought bubble above him shows an intact walled castle.
“And no matter how many walls have fallen, the citadel of individual consciousness has not fallen nor is it likely to fall.”
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan