A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations
Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate
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Viewing chapter Satirist (29 quotes)
My canvasses are surrealist, and to call them "theories" is to miss my satirical intent altogether.
Letter to William Kuhns, Dec. 6, 1971, in Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p 448
Year: 1971
Chapter:
Roles
We have to know what we are doing in advance.
We have to repeat what we were about to say.
“The Be-Spoke Tailor” in Explorations 8, October (1957), unnumbered page “section 4”, the entire issue later reprinted as Verbi-Voco-Visual, (1967),no page numbers in original or reprint.
Year: 1957
Good taste is the expression of a colossal incompetence.
Through the Vanishing Point : Space in Poetry and Painting with Harley Parker, 1968, p 213
Year: 1968
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
Stupidity is no excuse for not thinking.
“A Page of Boo Boos,” one-liner joke list, acquired and invented, kept at the Centre by Barrington Nevitt and Margaret Stewart, circa 1973
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
Of course Johnny must read. He must follow the lines of print. He must roll that hoop down the walk. He must roll his eyes in lineal, sequential fashion. We have only to proceed to engraft the old right-handedness on his new left-handedness in order to win our point. But in the meantime we shall have lost his attention, and he may be subdued, but he will be utterly confused.
“The Electronic Revolution”, speech (1959), in Understanding Me (2003), p 3
Year: 1959
Chapter:
Reading
And so, at the very high speed of living, everybody needs a new career and a new job and a totally new personality every ten years.
“Jean Pare interview”, in Forces magazine a Hydro Quebec publication, No.22, (1973), p 27
Year: 1973
Chapter:
Anticipating Change
Detective literature may, indeed, be a prophylactic for suppressed rage. It may have saved us from Fascism or Communism by providing an armchair emotional cathartic for potential mob leaders. It may have brought all the prophecies of Marx to the bureaucratic parody we see today.
“Footprints in “Footprints in the Sands of Crime,” Sewanee Review, 1946
Year: 1946
Chapter:
Marx, Karl
Drawn to McLuhan #3
We have all noticed how lineality has faded from the current scene. The chorus line, the stag line, the assembly line, all have gone the way of the clothes line.
“Inside the five Sense Sensorium,” in Canadian Architect, Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 49-54.
Newton discovered levity, not gravity. He discovered the ex-fluence of the moon. The attractions of the moon still over-ride all the traditional thoughts of dignity and gravity.
“Kahn-frontation”, 1969, essay written for Newsweek, unpublished, p 1 of typescript
Year: 1969
Want to know where you fit in so you can be outstanding? Do you feel a need to be distinctive and mass-produced?
The Mechanical Bride, 1951, p 46
Year: 1951
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
The Gutenberg galaxy was theoretically dissolved in 1905 by the discovery of curved space, but in practice it had been invaded by the telegraph two generations before that.
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, (1962), p 253
Year: 1962
[When asked to write a piece to educators in Learning magazine]
So far, I have not really had anything directly to say to educators as a group. The gist of my approach is satirical, only by telling it the way it is. Insofar as a satirical wrenching of the dormant programmed life is educational, I might be grouped into that category.
Letter to Jerome Agel, October 18, 1973
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhan on McLuhan
[That the senses are like colors: emphasize one, all the others change.] You see, it implies that the senses are not receptors so much as reactors and makers of different modalities of space.
Letter to Edward T. Hall, Nov. 17, 1969
Year: 1969
The age-old rivalry between the safe maker and the safecracker has resulted in a gradual reduction of the period of immunity from penetration. "Hardware" thinking persists in a "software" world, driving secrecy and security measures to comic lengths:
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
BURN BEFORE READING
TOP SECRET. WHEN YOU GET THIS, DESTROY YOURSELF.
Take Today with Barrington Nevitt (1972), p 91
Year: 1972
Chapters:
McLuhanisms & Zingers | Privacy
It is in the process of committing suicide that you find out whether you exist or not.
Found in folder of one-liner jokes, both acquired and invented, kept at the Centre by Barrington Nevitt and Margaret Stewart, circa 1973
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
Manslaughter and man’s laughter are spelled the same.
Found in a folder of one-liner jokes, both acquired and invented, kept at the Centre by Barrington Nevitt and Margaret Stewart, circa 1973
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
A double negative is a no-no.
Found in folder of one-liner jokes, both acquired and invented, kept at the Centre by Barrington Nevitt and Margaret Stewart, circa 1973
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
The 70's will see: A rampage of ecological legal prosecutions for disservice environments created by old "services".
The McLuhan Dew-Line Newsletter, 1969
Year: 1969
The content or message of any particular medium has about as much importance as the stenciling on the casing of an atomic bomb.
“Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan : A Candid Conversation with the High Priest of Popcult and Metaphysician of Media”. By Eric Norden. Playboy Magazine, March (1969),p 56, reprinted in The Essential McLuhan (1995), p 238
Year: 1969
Chapter:
Bomb
The Eskimo is a servomechanism of his kayak; the cowboy of his horse; the businessman of his clock; the cyberneticist—and soon the world—of his computer. In other words, * to the spoils belongs the victor.
“Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan: A Candid Conversation with the High Priest of Popcult and Metaphysician of Media”. By Eric Norden. Playboy Magazine, March (1969), p 53 & 74, reprinted in The Essential McLuhan (1995), p 264
Year: 1969
Are you in the groove? That is, are you moving in ever-diminishing circles?
The Mechanical Bride (1951), p 73
Year: 1951
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
Understanding Media, 1964, MIT/Routledge edition, p 251
Year: 1964
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
The nature of people demands that most of them be engaged in the most frivolous possible activities—like making money.
“An Informal Interview with Marshall McLuhan”, in Miss Chatelain (1974), page number not indicated in the LAC copy
Year: 1974
Chapters:
McLuhanisms & Zingers | Money
[An assumption] is an idea that outlives its uselessness.
Quoted by Edmund Carpenter in “That Not So Silent Sea” (1993), in The Virtual McLuhan by Donald Theall (2001), p 245
Year: 1993
Big committees are formed for the purpose of passing the buck.
“Watergate- Participatory Torture” (1973), p 3
Year: 1973
Chapter:
McLuhanisms & Zingers
There are no more great men; there are only great committees.
In “Marshall McLuhan: He’s Alive and Well and Doing His Thing,” The Spectator, November 8, 1975, p 26
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Politicians use glop. It just sits there. It creates a link between their pillows and your hair. That’s their way to feature a nest.
Culture Is Our Business, 1970, p 294
Year: 1970
“In private, McLuhan spoke of the necessity for humans to learn to laugh at the pomposity of moonshots.”
W. Terrance Gordon, Marshall McLuhan: Escape Into Understanding (1997), p 241
Year: 1997
First murder. Then suicide. That is the obvious dynamic of late.
Letter to Felix Giovanelli, May 8, 1945
Year: 1945
…the new environment shaped by electric technology is a cannibalistic one that eats people. To survive one must study the habits of cannibals.
The Hot and Cool Interview, 1967, reprinted in Media Research (1997), p 67
Year: 1967