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When Producers Want To Know What The Public Wants, They Graph It As Curves. When They Want To Tell The Public What To Get, They Say It In Curves.
-Marshall McLuhan
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When Producers Want To

Marshall McLuhan
...
When Producers Want To Know What The Public Wants, They Graph It As Curves. When They Want To Tell The Public What To Get, They Say It In Curves.

Understanding the Quote: "when producers want to know what the public wants, they graph it..."

This quote by Marshall McLuhan reflects deeply on the theme of business. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Business, Curves, Want, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Marshall McLuhan interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan is celebrated for insightful thoughts on business and curves. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Business
Curves
Want
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Today, The Mass Audience (the Successor To The "public") Can Be Used As A Creative, Participating Force. It Is, Instead, Merely Given Packages Of Passive Entertainment. Politics Offers Yesterday's Answers To Today's Questions.
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Diaper Backward Spells Repaid. Think About It.
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The Tv Camera Has No Shutter. It Does Not Deal With Aspects Or Facets Of Objects In High Resolution. It Is A Means Of Direct Pick-up By The Electrical Groping Over Surfaces.
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All Forms Of Violence Are Quests For Identity. When You Live On The Frontier, You Have No Identity. You're A Nobody.
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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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Anyone Who Tries To Make A Distinction Between Education And Entertainment Doesn't Know The First Thing About Either.
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Professionalism Is Environmental. Amateurism Is Anti Environmental. Professionalism Merges The Individual Into Patterns Of Total Environment. Amateurism Seeks The Development Of The Total Awareness Of The Individual And The Critical Awareness Of The Ground Rules Of Society. The Amateur Can Afford To Loose.
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The Greatest Propaganda In The World Is Our Mother Tongue, That Is What We Learn As Children, And Which We Learn Unconsciously. That Shapes Our Perceptions For Life. That Is Propaganda At Its Most Extreme Form.
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The New Media And Technologies By Which We Amplify And Extend Ourselves Constitute Huge Collective Surgery Carried Out On The Social Body With Complete Disregard For Antiseptics.
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Throughout Finnegans Wake Joyce Specifies The Tower Of Babel As The Tower Of Sleep, That Is, The Tower Of The Witless Assumption, Or What Bacon Calls The Reign Of The Idols.
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Ours Is A Brand-new World Of Allatonceness [all-at-once-ness]. 'time' Has Ceased, 'space' Has Vanished. We Now Live In A Global Village ... A Simultaneous Happening. ... The New Electronic Interdependence Recreates The World In The Image Of A Global Village.
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In The Phaedrus, Plato Argued That The New Arrival Of Writing Would Revolutionize Culture For The Worst. He Suggested That It Would Substitute Reminiscence For Thought And Mechanical Learning For The True Dialect Of The Living Quest For Truth By Discourse And Conversation.
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I'm Not Sure Who Discovered Water, But I'm Pretty Sure It Wasn't A Fish.
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I Wouldn't Have Seen It If I Hadn't Believed It.
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... Their Power To See Environments As They Really Are.
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Nothing Is Inevitable If We Are Willing To Contemplate What Is Happening.
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The Hallucinogenic World, In Environmental Terms, Can Be Considered As A Forlorn Effort Of Man To Match The Speed Of Power Of Hisextended Nervous System (which We Call The "electronic World") By Intensifying The Activity Of His Inner Nervous System.
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A Typewriter Is A Means Of Transcribing Thought, Not Expressing It.
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All Media Work Us Over Completely. They Are So Pervasive In Their Personal, Political, Economic, Aesthetic, Psychological, Moral, Ethical, And Social Consequences That They Leave No Part Of Us Untouched, Unaffected, Unaltered. The Medium Is The Message. Any Understanding Of Social And Cultural Change Is Impossible Without A Knowledge Of The Way Media Work As Environments. All Media Are Extensions Of Some Human Faculty - Psychic Or Physical.
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If It Works, It's Obsolete.
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The Winner Is One Who Knows When To Drop Out In Order To Get In Touch.
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I Don't Necessarily Agree With Everything I Say.
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Yesterday
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The Tv Generation Is Postliterate And Retribalized. It Seeks By Violence To Scrub The Old Private Image And To Merge In A New Tribal Identity, Like Any Corporate Executive.
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You See, Dad, Professor Mcluhan Says That The Environment That Man Creates Becomes His Medium For Defining His Role In It. The Invention Of Type Created Linear, Or Sequential Thought, Separating Thought From Action. Now, With Tv And Folk Singing, Thought And Action Are Closer And Social Involvement Is Greater. We Again Live In A Village. Get It?
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What We Call Art Would Seem To Be Specialist Artifacts For Enhancing Human Perception.
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Violence, Whether Spiritual Or Physical, Is A Quest For Identity And The Meaningful. The Less Identity, The More Violence.
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Einstein Pronounced The Doom Of Continuous Or 'rational' Space, And The Way Was Made Clear For Picasso And The Marx Brothers And Mad Magazine.
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Mad
All Media Are Extensions Of Some Human Faculty- Psychic Or Physical.
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Technology Is That Which Separates Us From Our Environment.
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Poetry And The Arts Can’t Exist In America. Mere Exposure To The Arts Does Nothing For A Mentality Which Is Incorrigibly Dialectical. The Vital Tensions And Nutritive Action Of Ideogram Remain Inaccessible To This State Of Mind.
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Mind
As Technology Advances, It Reverses The Characteristics Of Every Situation Again And Again. The Age Of Automation Is Going To Be The Age Of 'do It Yourself.'
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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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In Tetrad Form, The Artifact Is Seen To Be Not Neutral Or Passive, Bur An Active Logos Or Utterance Of The Human Mind Or Body That Transforms The User And His Ground.
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I Do Not Say Whether It Is A Good Or Bad Thing. To Do So Would Be Meaningless And Arrogant.
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The Huge Advantage Of Canada Is Its Backwardness.
Canada
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Huge
We Go Forward Looking In The Rearview Mirror.
Mirrors
Rearview Mirror
By Phonemic Trans-formation Into Visual Terms, The Alphabet Became A Universal, Abstract, Static Container Of Meaningless Sounds.
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Youth Instinctively Understand The Present Environment - The Electric Drama. It Lives Mythically And In Depth.
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Phenomenology Is Dialectic In Ear-mode - A Massive And Decentralized Quest For Roots, For Ground.
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The Car Has Become The Carapace, The Protective And Aggressive Shell, Of Urban And Suburban Man.
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Shells
I Am A Christian According To My Conscience In Belief,in Purpose And Wish;mnot Of Course By The Orthodox Standard. But I Am Content, And Have A Feeling Of Trust And Safety. The Machiavellian Mind And The Merchant Mind Are At One In Their Simple Faith In The Power Of Segmental Division To Rule All--in The Dichotomy Of Power And Morals And Of Money And Morals.
Christian
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Simple
Money Is A Poor Man's Credit Card.
Men
Cards
Credit
Ads Push The Principle Of Noise All The Way To The Plateau Of Persuasion. They Are Quite In Accord With The Procedures Of Brainwashing.
Principles
Noise
Way
Those Conspiracies That Are Too Incredible To Be Believed, Are By The Same Right, Those Which Most Often Succeed.
Evil
Denial
Succeed
Any Expensive Ad Represents The Toil, Attention, Testing, Wit, Art, And Skill Of Many People. Far More Thought And Care Go Into The Composition Of Any Prominent Ad In A Newspaper Or Magazine Than Go Into The Writing Of Their Features And Editorials.
Art
Attitude
Writing
Most Clear Writing Is A Sign That There Is No Exploration Going On. Clear Prose Indicates The Absence Of Thought.
Writing
Exploration
Absence
It Has Always Been The Artist Who Realizes That The Future Is The Present And Uses His Work To Prepare The Grounds For It
Artist
Use
Realizing
There Is An Enormous Redundancy In Every Well-written Book. With A Well-written Book I Only Read The Right-hand Page And Allow My Mind To Work On The Left-hand Page. With A Poorly Written Book I Read Every Word.
Book
Hands
Mind
If We Understand The Revolutionary Transformations Caused By New Media, We Can Anticipate And Control Them; But If We Continue In Our Self-induced Subliminal Trance, We Will Be Their Slaves.
Self
Media
Transformation
Where The Whole Man Is Involved There Is No Work. Work Begins With The Division Of Labor.
Men
Division Of Labor
Whole
To Say That A Body Or Its Gravitational Field 'bends In Space' In Its Vicinity Is The Discuss Visual Space In Acoustic Terms.
Space
Body
Fields
I Expect To See The Coming Decades Transform The Planet Into An Art Form; The New Man, Linked In A Cosmic Harmony That Transcends Time And Space, Will Sensuously Caress And Mold And Pattern Every Facet Of The Terrestrial Artifact As If It Were A Work Of Art, And Man Himself Will Become An Organic Art Form.
Art
Men
Space
The Young Today Cannot Follow Narrative But They Are Alert To Drama. They Cannot Bear Description But They Love Landscape And Action.
Drama
Landscape
Narrative
Television Is Teaching All The Time. Does More Educating Than The Schools And All The Institutions Of Higher Learning.
Teaching
School
Doe
Fish Did Not Discover Water.
Water
Fishes
As Information Becomes Our Environment, It Becomes Mandatory To Program The Environment Itself As A Work Of Art.
Art
Information
Environment
Violence Is The Quest For Identity. When Identity Disappears With Technological Innovation, Violence Is The Natural Recourse.
Innovation
Identity
Quests
Mass Transportation Is Doomed To Failure In North America Because A Person's Car Is The Only Place Where He Can Be Alone And Think.
Fate
Thinking
America
What Goes On Inside The School Is An Interruption Of Education.
School
Goes On
Interruptions
The Spoken Word Was The First Technology By Which Man Was Able To Let Go Of His Environment In Order To Grasp It In A New Way.
Letting Go
Technology
Men
The Content Or Time-clothing Of Any Medium Or Culture Is The Preceding Medium Or Culture.
Time
Culture
Mediums
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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Eye
Magic
There Is No Individualism In Eastern Or Oral Cultures.
Culture
Individualism
Eastern
The Story Begins Only When The Book Closes.
Book
Stories
The Ordinary Person Senses The Greatness Of The Odds Against Him Even Without Thought Or Analysis, And He Adapts His Attitudes Unconsciously. A Huge Passivity Has Settled On Industrial Society. For People Carried About In Mechanical Vehicles, Earning Their Living By Waiting On Machines, Listening Much Of The Waking Day To Canned Music, Watching Packaged Movie Entertainment And Capsulated News, For Such People It Would Require An Exceptional Degree Of Awareness And An Especial Heroism Of Effort To Be Anything But Supine Consumers Of Processed Goods.
Attitude
Greatness
Odds
We Look At The Present Through A Rear View Mirror. We March Backwards Into The Future.
Change
Mirrors
Views
I Am Curious To Know What Would Happen If Art Were Suddenly Seen For What It Is, Namely, Exact Information Of How To Rearrange One's Psyche In Order To Anticipate The Next Blow From Our Own Extended Faculties.
Art
Blow
Order
All Media Work Us Over Completely.
Media
Cultural Change
Metaphor Has Traditionally Been Regarded As The Matrix And Pattern Of The Figures Of Speech.
Speech
Patterns
Metaphor
The Artist Is The Man In Any Field, Scientific Or Humanistic, Who Grasps The Implications Of His Actions And Of New Knowledge In His Own Time. He Is The Man Of Integral Awareness.
Art
Men
Fields
Today's Child Is Bewildered When He Enters The 19th Century Environment That Still Characterizes The Educational Establishment Where Information Is Scarce But Ordered And Structured By Fragmented, Classified Patterns Subjects, And Schedules.
Children
Educational
Schedules
The Family Circle Has Widened. The Worldpool Of Information Fathered By The Electric Media--movies, Telstar, Flight--far Surpassesany Possible Influence Mom And Dad Can Now Bring To Bear. Character No Longer Is Shaped By Only Two Earnest, Fumbling Experts. Now All The World's A Sage.
Mom
Dad
Character
Positively, The Effect Of Speeding Up Temporal Sequence Is To Abolish Time, Much As The Telegraph And Cable Abolished Space. Of Course, The Photograph Does Both.
Space
Doe
Photograph
Canadians Are The People Who Learned To Live Without The Bold Accents Of The Natural Ego-trippers Of Other Lands.
Land
People
Ego
The Artist Is The Person Who Invents The Means To Bridge Between Biological Inheritance And The Environments Created By Technological Innovation.
Mean
Artist
Media
We Have To Find The Environments In Which It Will Be Possible To Live With Our New Inventions.
New Inventions
Environment
Invention
The Rythms Of Typing Favour Short, Concise Sentences, Sentences With Oral Form.
Media
Favour
Form
A Point Of View Can Be A Dangerous Luxury When Substituted For Insight And Understanding.
Life
Attitude
Views
Character No Longer Is Shaped By Only Two Earnest, Fumbling Experts. Now All The World's A Sage.
Character
Two
Experts
Mass Man Is A Phenomenon Of Electric Speed, Not Of Physical Quantity.
Men
Speed
Mass
Education In A Technological World Of Replaceable And Expendable Parts Is Neuter.
Education
World
Expendables
For Those For Whom The Sex Act Has Come To Seem Mechanical And Merely The Meeting And Manipulation Of Body Parts, There Often Remains A Hunger Which Can Be Called Metaphysical But Which Is Not Recognized As Such, And Which Seeks Satisfaction In Physical Danger, Or Sometimes In Torture, Suicide, Or Murder.
Suicide
Sex
Body
The Movie, By Sheer Speeding Up Of The Mechanical, Carried Us From The World Of Sequence And Connections Into The World Of Creative Configurations And Structure.
Movie
Creativity
Media
The Real News Is Bad News.
Real
News
Journalism
Only The Vanquished Remember History.
Political
Remember
The New Electronic Independence Re-creates The World In The Image Of A Global Village.
Science
Independence
World
Only The Small Secrets Need To Be Protected. The Large Ones Are Kept Secret By Public Incredulity.
Evil
Secret
Needs
The Price Of Eternal Vigilance Is Indifference.
Defense
Indifference
Vigilance
First We Build The Tools, Then They Build Us.
Tools
Firsts
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.
Media
Doe
Shapes
Computers Can Do Better Than Ever What Needn't Be Done At All. Making Sense Is Still A Human Monopoly.
Done
Computer
Monopoly
Language Is A Form Of Organized Stutter.
Definitions
Language
Form
We Become What We Behold. We Shape Our Tools And Then Our Tools Shape Us.
Tools
Shapes
Far More Thought And Care Go Into The Composition Of Any Prominent Ad In A Newspaper Or Magazine Than Go Into The Writing Of Their Features And Editorials.
Writing
Magazines
Care
Trending Author
Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Bob Barr
Alan Dundes
Lindsay Lohan
Florence Griffith Joyner
George Seldes
Category
Information