No Other Hope for Their Happiness

"One of the reasons why men are so anxious to exalt themselves--to overestimate their own value and their own powers--to resent anything that would tend to lower themselves in their own esteem or in that of others--is because they see no other hope for their happiness save in themselves.  That is often why they are so 'touchy,' so resentful of criticism, so impatient of opposition, so insistent on getting their own way, so eager to be known, so anxious for praise, so determined on ruling their surroundings.  They clutch at themselves like drowning men clutch at a straw.  And as life goes on, and they are still far from being satisfied, their attitude borders on the feverish and the hysterical; whatever they may have got, they are certainly far from having found peace."~~Boylan, This Tremendous Lover, ch.17.