WIST Quotations

McLuhan, Marshall -- Take Today: The Executive as Dropout, ch. 2 (1972)

Dave — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 19:14:04 +0000

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, educator
Take Today: The Executive as Dropout, ch. 2 (1972)
(Source)

McLuhan, Marshall -- The Gutenberg Galaxy, “Typographic man can express but is helpless to read the configurations of print technology” (1962)

Dave — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 16:08:50 +0000

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, educator
The Gutenberg Galaxy, “Typographic man can express but is helpless to read the configurations of print technology” (1962)
(Source)

McLuhan, Marshall -- The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967) [with Quentin Fiore]

Dave — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 17:40:13 +0000

Art is anything you can get away with.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, educator
The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967) [with Quentin Fiore]
(Source)

More discussion of this quotation: Art Is Anything You Can Get Away With – Quote Investigator.

McLuhan, Marshall -- In the Montreal Gazette (16 May 1975)

Dave — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 18:31:55 +0000

Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America — not the battlefields of Vietnam.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, educator
In the Montreal Gazette (16 May 1975)

McLuhan, Marshall -- Quoted in Richard Schickel, “Marshall McLuhan: Canada’s Intellectual Comet,” Harper’s Magazine (1965-11)

Dave — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 21:25:37 +0000

I think of Art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system, that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian philosopher, communication theorist, educator
Quoted in Richard Schickel, “Marshall McLuhan: Canada’s Intellectual Comet,” Harper’s Magazine (1965-11)
(Source)

Based on "conversations" Schickel had with McLuhan.

Often cited to McLuhan's breakout work Understanding Media (1964) (e.g., here and here), but not found there.