Harold A. Innis > Quotes

“The task of understanding a culture built on the oral tradition is impossible to students steeped in the written tradition. p.55”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“Literature and other fields of scholarship have become feudalized in a modern manorial system. Monopolies of knowledge have been built up by publishing firms to some extent in co-operation with universities and exploited in textbooks.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“The polished essay was introduced as “a clever contrivance adopted by a former dynasty to prevent the literate from thinking too much.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“Why do we not, I say, turn over the living book of the world instead of dead papers” (Comenius).”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“With the dominance of arithmetic and the decimal system, dependent apparently on the number of fingers or toes, modern students have accepted the linear measure of time. The dangers of applying this procrustean device in the appraisal of civilizations in which it did not exist illustrate one of numerous problems. The difficulties will be illustrated in part in these six lectures in which time becomes a crucial factor in the organization of material and in which a lecture is a standardized and relatively inefficient method of communication with an emphasis on dogmatic answers rather than eternal questions. I have attempted to meet these problems by using the concept of empire as an indication of the efficiency of communication.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“The Nile acted as a principle of order and centralization, necessitated collective work, created solidarity, imposed organizations on the people, and cemented them in a society. In turn the Nile was the work of the Sun, the supreme author of the universe. Ra — the Sun — the demiurge was the founder of all order human and divine, the creator of gods themselves. Its power was reflected in an absolute monarch to whom everything was subordinated. It has been suggested that such power followed the growth of astronomical knowledgeb by which the floods of the Nile could be predicted, notably a discovery of the sidereal year in which the rising of Sirius coincided with the period of floods.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“Bureaucracy in terms of the state implied an emphasis on space and a neglect of the problems of time and in terms of religion an emphasis on time and a neglect of the problems of space.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“If he desires that all should look up to him, let him permit himself to be known but not to be understood” (Hallam).”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“Everyone believed in immortality until they heard Boyle give a lecture to prove it.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications

“The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileod in astronomy, of Columbus in geography, of William Gilbert in magnetism, and of Harvey of the circulation of the blood reinforced the significance of science and of nature in contrast with books.”
― Harold A. Innis, Empire and Communications