A man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. For it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn't it? And yet he knows that no one has offended him and that he has invented the offence himself, that he has lied just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated to make himself look big and important, that he has fastened on a phrase and made a mountain out of a molehill - he knows it all and yet is the first to take offence, he finds pleasure in it and feels mightily satisfied with himself, and so reaches the point of real enmity... Get up, please. Sit down, I beg you. Why, all this, too, is deceitful posturing.
