“The Chinese used the intervals between things as the primary means of getting 'in touch' with situations.”

—  Marshall McLuhan

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 77

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Chinese used the intervals between things as the primary means of getting 'in touch' with situations." by Marshall McLuhan?
Marshall McLuhan photo
Marshall McLuhan 416
Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor … 1911–1980

Related quotes

R. A. Lafferty photo

“The devils stroll the earth again and infect with the red sickness. They must, at all cost to themselves, destroy the growing tendrils before such can touch the other side. For, whenever one least growing creeper touches across the interval, that means the extinction of a devil.”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

Source: The Flame is Green (1971), Ch. 9 : Oh, The Steep Roofs of Paris
Context: The devils stroll the earth again and infect with the red sickness. They must, at all cost to themselves, destroy the growing tendrils before such can touch the other side. For, whenever one least growing creeper touches across the interval, that means the extinction of a devil. It is a thing to be tested. Notice it that whenever there is the special shrilling, when there is the wild flinging out of catchwords to catch you in, when there are the weird exceptions and inclusions, when there are specious arguments and the murderous defamations, when all the volubility of the voltairians and the cuteness of the queers has been assembled to confound you, then one green growth has almost reached across to the other side, one devil is in danger of extinction. Oh, they will defend against that!

Merce Cunningham photo

“John Cage and I became interested in the use of chance in the 50's. I think one of the very primary things that happened then was the publication of the "I Ching," the Chinese book of changes, from which you can cast your fortune: the hexagrams.”

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) American dancer

Merce Cunningham, A Lifetime of Dance, 2000

Norodom Sihanouk photo

“The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom, have taught me that one must know when to choose between the primary and secondary enemy. For China, the primary enemy is the Soviet Union, and the secondary one is America. Therefore, they deal with the Soviet Union first, and America later. For me, the primary enemy is American imperialism and Lon Nol's fascism. My secondary enemies are the communists. Thus, I choose to ally myself with the secondary enemy to defeat the primary.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

Said during his exile in Peking, as quoted by Oriana Fallaci (June 1973), Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011). page 128.
Interviews

Lu Xun photo

“The so-called "peace" is an interval between wars.”

Lu Xun (1881–1936) Chinese novelist and essayist

9
"The Epigrams of Lusin"

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Interface, of the resonant interval as 'where the action is', whether chemical, psychic or social, involves touch.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 102

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but rather your thoughts about the situation. – Eckhart Tolle”

Ralph Smart
Erich Maria Remarque photo

“That is the remarkable thing about drinking: it brings people together so quickly, but between night and morning it sets an interval again of years.”

Erich Maria Remarque book Three Comrades

Source: Three Comrades

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm; not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the gap between two such beats, the gray gap between black beats: the Tender Interval.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Source: Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Eckhart Tolle photo

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Variant: The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo

“If we suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars,”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Footnote: By Mr. Henderson Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh University and Lieutenant Meadows.
p. 3
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844)
Context: A sensible parallax of about one second has been ascertained in the case of the double star [ Alpha Centauri ] of the constellation of the Centaur, and one of the third of that amount for the double star, 61 Cygni; which gave reason to presume that the distance of the former might be about twenty thousand millions of miles, and the latter of much greater amount. If we suppose that similar intervals exist between all the stars, we shall readily see that the space occupied by even the comparatively small number visible to the naked eye, must be vast beyond all powers of conception.

Related topics