A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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Found 6 quotes (4 duplicates hidden).
By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man.
The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p 65
Quote #209
Year: 1962
Chapter: Alphabet
[When discussing the possibility of the Church “abandoning itself without question to electric mentality”]
Technically speaking, the age in which we live is certainly favourable to an Antichrist. Just think: each person can instantly be tuned to a “new Christ” and mistake him for the real Christ. At such times it becomes crucial to hear properly and to tune yourself in to the right frequency.
From “Tomorrow’s Church: Fourth Conversation with Pierre Babin” In The Medium and the Light (1999), p. 209
Quote #892
Year: 1999
Chapters: Catholic Church | He’s Doubtful | Warnings
↪ Also at #2646, #2654, #7425
If the book can be sent anywhere, as a gift or as a service environment, the paradoxical electric reversal is that it is the sender who is sent. This flip, or chiasmus of form and function occurs at the level of instant speed, and is characteristic of telephone and radio and video alike.
“Do Books Matter?” (1973), in On the Nature of Media (2016), p 209
Quote #1042
Year: 1973
Chapter: Chiasmus, Flips, Reversals
They [critics who castigate TV content as cliché-ridden] have only to try out their theory for fifty consecutive words in the mass medium of the English language. What would Mr. Minow [TV critic of the era] do, without the well-worn and corny clichés of popular speech?
Understanding Media (1964), MIT/Routledge edition, p 209
Quote #2736
Year: 1964
Chapter: Hostility to McLuhan
XIV. Instant replay A. Instant replay of experience = cliché. Amplifies cognitive awareness. B. Obsolesces the representational and chronological. C. Retrieves "meaning." D. Flips from individual experience to pattern recognition—archetype.
Laws of Media: The New Science with Eric McLuhan, (1988), p 209
Quote #5292
Year: 1988
Chapter: Pattern Recognition
In a certain way, I also think that this could be the time of the Antichrist. When electricity allows for the simultaneity of all information for every human being, it is Lucifer’s moment. He is the greatest electrical engineer.
“Tomorrow’s Church: Fourth Conversation with Pierre Babin (1977), in The Medium and the Light (1999), p 209
Quote #7392
Year: 1977
Chapters: Wake Them Up! | Warnings
↪ Also at #7440

Drawn to McLuhan #2

Two-panel comic illustration of a boxing match: a humanoid figure made of tumbling alphabet letters wearing "BRECE" shorts faces off against a muscular boxer with a smartphone for a head, under a "LITERACY VS ELECTRONIC" ring sign; in the second panel the smartphone boxer knocks the letter-man apart with a "K.O." punch.
“It may even prove to be the case that the entire tradition of phonetic writing, which is co-extensive with our Western world and the Graeco-Roman tradition, cannot sustain the electronic impact.”
Illustrated period scene of a man in early-1900s suit and cap stepping into a Ford Model T outside the "Biograph Theatre" marquee advertising "The Artful Dodger," with a thought bubble above showing rows of parked cars at an outdoor movie screening.
“New means create new goals.”
Illustrated interior of a rustic coffee shop with several patrons seated separately, each connected by small thought-bubble trails to one large shared blank thought bubble overhead, suggesting wordless, intuitive communication.
“The future of language presents the possibility of a world without words, a wordless, intuitive world, like a technological extension of the action of consciousness.”
Illustration set in a lush jungle showing a feather-adorned Indigenous tribesman facing a translucent glowing green humanoid figure whose body is composed of streaming binary code.
“The new electronic man and pre-literate man see eye to eye.”
Stylized line-art illustration of an elevated highway with a bright yellow central lane sweeping up into a sharp architectural peak, flanked by a modern city skyline of glass skyscrapers.
“The road is our major architectural form.”
Illustration of a cluttered living room where a mother holds a baby on a couch surrounded by several children, most staring blankly at an unseen glowing television screen while a teenager scrolls a phone.
“We are not the true parents of our children.”
Illustrated lineup of warriors and soldiers spanning history left to right — an Indigenous fighter, Roman legionaries, a medieval knight, WWI and modern soldiers, a futuristic armored figure, and an astronaut on the moon — set against a backdrop of fire, smoke, and space.
“We put on our technology as evolutionary clothing.”
Comic-style illustration of a robed orator gesturing dramatically from a pedestal, his speech rendered as a jumbled speech bubble of scrambled Greek letters, while an assistant arranges the same letters into ordered puzzle pieces spelling Greek words like "ΑΡΕΤΗ" and "ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗ" on a scroll.
“Writing is the spatialization of thought.”
The YouTube logo: a red rounded rectangle with a white play-button triangle beside the black "YouTube" wordmark on a black background.
[With electronic media, we are building] “…a new tribal encyclopedia of auditory incantation”
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan