Marshall McLuhan

Language does for intelligence what the wheel does for the feet and the body. It enables them to move from thing to thing with greater ease and speed and ever less involvement. (p. 113)

The mosaic form of the TV image demands participation and involvement in depth, of the whole being, as does the sense of touch. (p. 334)

The message of radio is one of violent, unified implosion and resonance. (p. 263)

Today, computers hold out the promise of a means of instant translation of any code or language into any other code or language. (p. 80)

A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor? (p.7)

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)

Radio comes to us ostensibly with person to person directness that is private and intimate, while in more urgent fact, it is really a subliminal echo chamber of magic power to touch remote and forgotten chords. (p. 302).

Electric technology is directly related to our central nervous systems, so it is ridiculous to talk of "what the public wants" played over its own nerves. (p. 68)

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving towards the grand fallacy. (p. 154)

Literate man, civilized man, tends to restrict and to separate functions, whereas tribal man has freely extended the form of his body to include the universe. (p. 117)

The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message. (p. 8)

Environments are invisible. Their groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns elude easy perception.