A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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We can always see the Emperor’s old clothes, but not the new ones.
“Our Dawning Electric Age” (1965), p 12
Quote #5979
Year: 1965
Chapters: Environment | Rear View Mirror
↪ Also at #2082

Drawn to McLuhan #6

Three-panel comic illustration of a vintage tube-radio-style robot wrapping a woman in strips of punched ticker tape printed with algorithmic text, with a close-up of the text-covered tape and a final panel of the woman standing beside the robot.
“With computers we are taped typed and scrubbed.”
Two-panel cartoon: in the left panel a man in overalls repairs a disassembled humanoid robot on a workbench; in the right panel the now-functional robot welds metal while the man, startled, carries a box of parts away.
“We make our tools and our tools remake us.”
Sketch-style illustration of three figures — a young woman with a backpack, a man in a blue jacket, and an elderly man with a cane — walking away down a country road in different directions, looking back over their shoulders.
“We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”
Split illustration: an office scene with a locked "Suggestions" box and potted plant beside a doorway, leading into an industrial room where a worker in a yellow hazmat suit and gas mask uses tongs to feed a paper into a glowing furnace.
“The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.”
Illustration of human hands and robotic hands collaboratively assembling and sanding a wooden triangular frame (resembling an impossible/Penrose triangle) on a workbench covered with tools, screws, and blueprints.
“The future work of mankind is to achieve relevance.”
Stylized illustration of four vintage guitar cases leaning against a brick wall beside a "Stage Entrance" sign and band posters reading "Hollow Notes" and "Folk."
“The future of consciousness is already assuming a very different pattern, a very different character.”
Colorful cartoon illustration of a diverse crowd of people singing, dancing, and playing instruments (guitar, violin, drum) together along a tree-lined city park path.
“Sound, in this new world of dance and song, is not for listening, it’s for making.”
Cartoon illustration of a man in a suit walking down a hallway toward three doors marked with male, female, and a half-blue/half-orange question-mark restroom symbols.
“Sex as we now think of it may soon be dead.”
Comic-style caricature of a wild-haired pianist in a tuxedo mid-performance at a grand piano, mouth wide open with piano-key teeth, one hand raised and the other holding a concert program, an audience visible in the background.
“Mine is a transformation theory: how people are changed by the instruments they employ.”
Satirical oil painting in an ornate gilded frame depicting a shirtless man on a rearing horse against a mountain steppe landscape, styled as classical equestrian portraiture, with a nameplate on the frame.
"It is a characteristic of all social processes that they become manifest and conspicuous at the moment of their demise."
Cartoon illustration of two robots seated in a futuristic control room, monitoring screens labeled "Live Gum Interaction," "Wrigley Consumption," and other real-time metrics, with a pair of hands unwrapping a stick of gum shown on a central display.
“Each stick of gum we reach for is acutely noted by some computer that translates out least gesture into a new probability curve.”
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan