You can achieve nothing if you forsake yourself; but what do you miss, aside from this, in your circle

You can achieve nothing if you forsake yourself; but what do you miss, aside from this, in your circle? To this appeal I answer only: I too would rather submit to blows within the circle than myself deal the blows outside it – but where the devil is this circle? For a time, indeed, I did see it lying on the earth, as if sprayed in lime, but now it just seems to hover about me, indeed does not even hover.

Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka: 1910-1923