# Quote — Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

> Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly. (p.73 of the 1966 Signet paperback edition)

- Author: [Marshall McLuhan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan.md)
- Book: [Understanding Media](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan#Understanding_Media_(1964)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/once-we-have

## More from this book

> Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth. One of the merits of motivation research has been the revelation of man's sex relation to the motorcar. (p.46)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/physiologically-man-in-the.md)

> All meaning alters with acceleration, because all patterns of personal and political interdependence change with any acceleration of information. (p. 178-179)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/all-meaning-alters.md)

> In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin. (p. 47)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marshall-mcluhan/understanding-media/in-the-electric-age.md)