“ If the individual is isolated, he is either absolutely the creator of his own destiny, in which case nothing tragic remains, but only the evil – for it is not even tragic for an individual to be blinded by or engrossed in himself, it is his own doing – or individuals are nothing but modifications of the eternal substance of existence, and so once again the tragic is lost. ”
 Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (1843). copy citation