Daily Inspiration Quote by Rollo May

May is sneaking a moral claim into what looks like a neutral observation: communication is not just the transfer of information, it is the engine that manufactures belonging. As an existential psychologist, he’s less interested in “skills” than in the stakes. To communicate, in his framing, is to risk being known. That risk is precisely what converts a crowd into a community.

The sentence works because it stages a chain reaction. “Leads to” makes community sound like a consequence rather than an aspiration, but then he defines community in loaded, relational terms: “understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” Notice what’s missing: agreement, harmony, or efficiency. May isn’t describing a frictionless group chat; he’s pointing to the conditions under which people can stay in relationship without collapsing into loneliness or domination. “Mutual valuing” is the tell. Communication, for May, is ethical. It’s an acknowledgement that the other person isn’t an object to manage but a subject who can answer back.

The subtext is also a quiet critique of modern life: you can be surrounded by messages and still be starved of connection. May lived through world wars, the rise of mass media, and mid-century American conformity, all of which sharpened his suspicion that people can become socially synchronized while remaining emotionally isolated. His line pushes against the fantasy that community is created by proximity, identity labels, or shared consumption. It’s created by the hard work of making meaning together - and by tolerating the vulnerability that real understanding requires.