Society in its full sense […] is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilization has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of an individual.

Ruth Benedict (1887-1947) American anthropologist

Patterns of Culture, ch. 8 “The Individual and Culture” (1934)
    (Source)

Sometimes quoted as "The community is never an entity ...."