We can love with all our hearts those in whom we recognize great faults. It would be impertinent to believe that perfection alone has the right to please us; sometimes our weaknesses attach us to each other as much as our virtues.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier

Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]

Alt. trans.: "Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself."