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We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

Marshall McLuhan

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Marshall McLuhan
Age: 69 †
Born: 1911
Born: July 21
Died: 1980
Died: December 31
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Edmonton
Alberta
Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Marshall MacLuhan
Marshall Mac Luhan
Behold
Shape
Tools
Shapes
Become

More quotes by Marshall McLuhan

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Clear prose indicates the absence of thought.
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The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the search and form of human associations and action.
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Attention spans get very weak at the speed of light, and that goes along with a very weak identity.
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Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise, / Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? / That we by tracing magic lines are taught, / How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?
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Any loss of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by violence. Today, the electric revolution, the wired planet, and the information environment involve everybody in everybody to the point of individual extinction.
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In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.
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The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.
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The task confronting contemporary man is to live with the hidden ground of his activities as familiarly as our literate predecessors lived with the figure minus ground.
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A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.
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Good taste is the first refuge of the non creative. It is the last ditch stand of the artist.
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The 'expert' is the man who stays put.
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I am not a culture critic because I am not in any way interested in classifying cultural forms. I am a metaphysician, interested in the life of the forms and their surprising modalities. That is why I have no interest in the academic world.
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Logos is the formal cause of the kosmos and all things, responsible for their nature and configuration.
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Only the small secrets need to be protected. The large ones are kept secret by public incredulity.
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The business of the advertiser is to see that we go about our business with some magic spell or tune or slogan throbbing quietly in the background of our minds.
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Today's child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds, and neither of them inclines him to grow up. Growing up--thatis our new work, and it is total. Mere instruction will not suffice.
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Don't ask whether it is right or wrong. Instead try to find out what is going on.
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Language always preserves a play or figure/ground relation between experience, and perception and its replay in expression.
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In experimental art, men are given the exact specifications of coming violence to their own psyches from their own counter-irritant or technology... But the counter-irritant usually proves a greater plague than the initial irritant, like a drug habit.
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A typewriter is a means of transcribing thought, not expressing it.
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