Marshall McLuhan Quotes

Seeing that picture, for me, was like Chartres Cathedral.

A Gothic building engenders true religion ... The light, falling through colored glass, the singular forms of the architecture, unite to give a silent image of that infinite mystery which the soul for ever feels, and never comprehends.

When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.

Art brings a message into a room. It should make us perceive in a new way - either through color, form or narrative content - something we had not perceived before... and perhaps reveal something to you about yourself.

Good art in general aspires to something, as a good painting aspires to something, almost spiritual or holy.

Music tells no truths.

For decades engineers have stood accused that their buildings do not have any cultural value. We have attempted to liberate engineering of this accusation.

The power of the story sheds a light and great perspective on well known facts. The power of cinema draws on that collective history.

It is not architectural achievement that makes the structures of earlier times seem to us so full of significance but the circumstance that antique temples, Roman basilicas, and even the cathedrals of the Middle Ages are not the works of single personalities but creations of entire epochs.

The arts don't exist in isolation.

Art evokes emotion. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty.

People are proud of their tattoos. It's like a modern coat of arms.

To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.

Politics is marginal, but literature moves along by indirection.

Art should be life. It's an imitation of life. It should have some humanity in it.

Art is transformative. It's not 2+2=4. It works like the sea. It changes geography through its constant and relentless movement, just the way plants and water shape the world.

I think we give too much importance to artists talking about the art and the film and the books and the plays and the music - it's done; the material is there. But we talk about it because it's part of the game. I'm comfortable with it.

To understand a field, you look at its arts. Arts can be cautionary as well as inspiring.

I was doing an interview with a curator, and he asked me to sum up art in one word. Before he even finished asking the question, I said, 'Impurity.' Because that's it.

The claims I'm making for art are simply the claims that we naturally make around music or around poetry. We're much more relaxed around those art forms. We're willing to ask, 'How could this find a place in my heart?'

Art is truth.

That's really the whole point of art - it's to take something commonplace and draw people on a path so that, all of a sudden, they have a new impression of everything around them.

Art points to things. It's a way of giving people not the standard way of looking at the world.

'Parsifal' is one of the great examples in art of a work that transcends the personality of the man who wrote it.