A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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Viewing chapter English Language (7 quotes)
For to an infant, English is not a language but a mechanical code. To an adult beginning Russian, it, too, is first a mechanical code. It becomes a language only when it has become subliminal to him.
“The Medium Is the Message” (1960), p 22
Quote #2011
Year: 1960
Performers and singers of jazz and Rock are not specially happy or successful when using any language except English for these effects. It is quite impossible for any kind of song to exist apart from a linguistic ground or base, but there may prove to be a special component in English that favours the forms of jazz and Rock themes. The matter has not been studied.
“Sidebar”, in Explorations 20, 1971, p 107
Quote #2012
Year: 1971
Chapter: Music
…the English language is an enormous medium that is very much more potent and effective than anything that is ever said in English…[and]…anyone who uses that medium invokes or resonates the totality of it even with the most trivial remark.
Interview with H. Hoskins, The Listener, March 26, 1970
Quote #2013
Year: 1970
Chapter: Medium is the Message
And the whole of the English language took on a tremendous new oral life from radio. I'm sure that this was carried straight on into jazz and rock music.
TV News as a New Mythic Form, 1970, in Understanding Me, 2003, p 160
Quote #2014
Year: 1970
English itself is a mass medium. Today we’re beginning to realize that the new media aren’t just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.
“Classroom Without Walls” (1957)
Quote #2015
Year: 1957
Chapter: Language
For various reasons, which we can discuss at length sometime, it is impossible to have a music that is not based on the rhythms of a particular tongue of speech. Speech is the “hidden” ground for the music as figure in any culture whatever. There are specific and complex reasons why the oral tradition of American Southern speech constitute the only possible ground for jazz and rock. Some of these reasons include the fact that English is almost the only language in the world that has actual feet and not mere syllables. Equally basic is the relation of English to the metropolitan patterns of industrial sound. New technological sounds and patterns are processed through the speech in order to become “music.” To people who do not understand this complex of speech technology factors, it must seem very mysterious that Chinese and Norwegian alike are compelled to sing Rock in English rather than their own tongues.
Letter to John Cage, September 13, 1972, in Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p 456
Quote #2016
Year: 1972
Chapters: Figure/Ground | Music | Speech
“McLuhan quoted a line from Eliot in mincing Eliotic voice to illustrate a McLuhan concept of English poetry that he called ‘a sensory bias of levelness, evenness… ‘The English used linearity in the equitone way to keep the mob back. It’s a strategy of self-defence.’”
Grace Glueck in the New York Times (date to come), reviewing the museum seminar headlined by Marshall McLuhan and Harley Parker at the City Museum of New York, October, 1967; from William Buxton’s Introduction, The Museum as Large-Room Pinball Machine, Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Museum Professionals, edited by William Buxton, published U. of Alberta Press, 2026, p 12
Quote #2017
Year: 1967
Chapters: Eliot, T.S. | Speech

Drawn to McLuhan #5

Illustration of a smartphone whose screen displays a man in business attire curled into a cramped fetal position inside the device.
"New technology breeds new man."
Illustrated procession of warriors and soldiers through history — a Native American fighter, Roman legionaries, a medieval knight, WWI/WWII infantry, a modern rifle-armed soldier, a futuristic armored trooper, and an astronaut — set against a sky shifting from fire to outer space.
"Every new technology necessitates a new war."
Illustration of a giant boot-shaped prison labeled "Section 7" and "Processing," guarded by an armed soldier, with a long line of people below all staring down at their smartphones.
"Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but ... he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort."
Illustration of a young man and woman riding old-fashioned bicycles through a swirling, disorienting vortex surrounded by crumbling buildings, uprooted trees, and floating debris, with a torn sign reading "...cade de l'avenir."
"Our confused efforts to re-establish goals, habits, attitudes, and the sense of security they bring has become the main order of business."
Illustrated procession of warriors and soldiers through history — a Native American fighter, Roman legionaries, a medieval knight, WWI/WWII infantry, a modern rifle-armed soldier, a futuristic armored trooper, and an astronaut — set against a sky shifting from fire to outer space.
"We put on our technology as evolutionary clothing."
Illustration of a diverse group of pedestrians on a city sidewalk lined with a cafe and bookstore, most wearing headphones or earbuds and looking at their phones near a crosswalk.
"We can musically harmonize our lives to a fantastic degree. And we are headed that way."
Cartoon illustration of an awards-ceremony stage with a banner reading "This Year's Man of Distinction," where a crowd of identically dressed men in black tuxedos jostle forward to receive the same trophy from a smiling recipient.
"[We can expect] less and less distinction for more and more men of distinction."
Photo-style graphic of a smartphone displaying the YouTube logo (red play button and wordmark) centered against a pink-to-orange gradient background.
"[As we retribalize, we're certain to build] a new tribal encyclopedia of auditory incantation."
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan