A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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Viewing chapter Aristotle (12 quotes)
It turns out then, that my communication theory is Thomistic to the core. It has the further advantage of being able to explain Aquinas and Aristotle in modern terms. We are the content of anything we use, if only because these things are extensions of ourselves. The meaning of the pencil, or the chair I use is the interplay between me and these things. Again, the message of these things is the sum of the changes that result from their social use. Thus, I have added two features to "the medium is the message", namely the content and the meaning. Perhaps Pierre Juneau or somebody at C.R.T.C. would like to have this essay apropos the problem of "Canadian content"? The consequence for the discussion of the problem of Canadian content for the media is drastically simplified by noticing that the user is the content. If Canadians use or watch American programs or drive American cars, it is the Canadians who are the content of these things. The meaning is in the resulting interplay or dialogue between Canadians and these things, but there can be no question that the Canadian user of American things is the content of these things. The meaning and the message are something else. It is unfortunate that the C.R.T.C. ever involved itself in the question of content, especially since it does not understand the nature of media at all, except as hardware. …Since the user as content is not a figure of speech but a basic dynamic and cognitative relationship, I think you will find that it can be pushed all the way as a means of orientation in media, economics and politics. I suggest that it can be the basis for a complete restatement of political and economic realities in the information age of the wired planet.
Letter to J.M Davey, Office of the Prime Minister, March 2, 1971, in Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987) pp 427-428
Quote #418
Year: 1971
Chapter: User as Content
The “authority” of Aristotle was no greater for a medieval dialectician than the integrity of his principles and the comprehension of his conclusions. Artistotle could, therefore, be cited by various disputants on different sides of the same questions. The “authority” of Cicero was dependent on his moral integrity and the prestige of his eloquence…
Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time (1943 - doctoral dissertation), typescript, p 289
Quote #419
Year: 1943
Ancient grammar was at odds with the dialectics of Plato and, especially, of Aristotle, as the art of interpreting phenomena.
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 41
Quote #420
Year: 1943
A history of dialectics by a dialectician does not exist, apart from the brief remarks of Aristotle.
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 43
Quote #421
Year: 1943
Aristotle, rather than Plato, raised dialectics to the status of an art.
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 47
Quote #422
Year: 1943
Rhetoric, placed under dialectics by Aristotle...
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 119
Quote #423
Year: 1943
The rise of Aristotle and dialectics to supremacy among the arts was especially disastrous to grammar and the classics...
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 138
Quote #424
Year: 1943

Drawn to McLuhan #13

Split illustration: on the left, a man carefully works on an elaborate model train village built around a mountain; on the right, a man in a green coat boards a vintage passenger train at a busy station platform.
“…whereas verification [left hemisphere of the brain] asks: Did I build the system right? validation [both hemispheres, guided by the right hemisphere] asks, Did I build the right system?” Iain McGilchrist
Illustration of an elderly couple seated at a candlelit dinner table, surrounded by translucent, glowing blue figures made of binary code representing an extended family gathered for a feast.
“We have to invent a new concept of civilization in order to live at the speed of light.”
Split illustration: the top half shows two women rendered as glowing digital/binary-code figures typing on laptops and connected by a red stream of data across a black background; the bottom half shows the same two women as ordinary photorealistic figures typing on laptops against teal and orange backgrounds.
“We are converting ourselves into information processes.”
Cartoon of a distressed man clutching his head in a city street as dozens of speech bubbles, thought bubbles, and everyday objects all labeled "John" rain down around him.
“The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.”
Photograph of a vintage black Ford Model T parked at a scenic hillside overlook, with a modern highway interchange and suburban town spread out in the valley below.
“It is the framework that changes with new technology, and not the picture within the frame.”
Sepia-toned illustration of a smartphone-headed figure in a top hat driving a horse-drawn carriage, with four hunched men in harness straps pulling it while staring down at their own phones.
Circe only turned men into swine. Our problem is tougher.
Illustration of a colonial-era preacher in a wooden pulpit addressing a seated congregation, with a large speech bubble displaying bold printed text.
“Boldness of type created boldness of expression.”
Illustration of a weary older man using a paint roller to whitewash over a colorful carnival scene inside a large thought bubble, with paint drips falling below.
“At the speed of light the need to forget has become a form of nostalgia.”
Cartoon illustration of baseball players sitting in a dugout, staring in bewilderment as an older man in a golf visor and plaid pants walks past carrying a golf bag full of clubs.
“An assumption is an idea that has outlived its uselessness.”
Quote card combining photographic images of marble busts of Plato (hands covering his ears) and Aristotle (hands covering his eyes) beside a sepia photograph of Marshall McLuhan, with a speech bubble of quotation text above them.
“Why has no one in history -- not Plato, certainly not Aristotle, no philosopher, ever regarded our technologies grammatically, asking how they inflect on us?”
...[Petrarch’s] dread of that Averroism, rooted in the Arabic Aristotle, which drew so many into atheism during and after the thirteenth century.
The Classical Trivium: The Place of Thomas Nashe in the Learning of His Time, 1943, published by Gingko in 2006, p 158, n 63
Quote #425
Year: 1943
When Coleridge said that all men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians, he was saying that all men tend to be either acoustic or visual in their sensory bias.
Laws of Media: The New Science with Eric McLuhan, (1988), p 113
Quote #426
Year: 1988
Chapters: Coleridge | Eye vs Ear
You know the Aristotelian doctrine of knowing is making. Well, plain knowing has now become the only meaningful source of wealth.
Letter to Mother St. Micheal [Winnifred]Guinan, June 7, (1965)
Quote #427
Year: 1965
Chapter: Knowledge
Even Aristotle was led into the “usury” trap by his failure to see the enormous service environments created by writing and coinage as wealth-makers. From Adam Smith and Ricardo to Karl Marx and Keynes, economists have ignored all service/disservice environments. This blank in their vision has rendered their analyses sterile and irrelevant. Yet by supplying the needed insights to complete this blank, Innis became unintelligible. That is to say, he was stating actualities, which most scholars preferred to know nothing about.
“Libraries, Past, Present, Future” (1970), p 8
Quote #428
Year: 1970
Chapters: Innis, Harold Adams | Marx, Karl | Services, Disservices
It was Aristotle who pointed out, way back in that period when they were just discovering visual space and values, that any form, any kind of organized form, when pushed to its limits, instantly assumes the opposite characteristics. We have seen this happen in our own time. Culture has become our business. Ours used to be a business civilization with a little culture added. Now, in the age when the knowledge industries have become overwhelmingly dominant, culture has become the primary mark of our age.
The Museum as Large-Room Pinball Machine, Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Museum Professionals, 1967, full transcript of a seminar at the City Museum of New York, October, 1967, edited by William Buxton, published by U. of Alberta Press, 2026, p 81
Quote #429
Year: 1967
Chapters: Chiasmus, Flips, Reversals | Management
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