the man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. 
you know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn't it? 
a man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness

—(father zosima), fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov