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 ...."