It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.

Jerome suggests that human connection is forged less through admiration of excellence than through the recognition of shared imperfection. Virtues can inspire respect, but they also separate—highlighting differences in discipline, talent, or moral achievement. Faults and follies, by contrast, are common currency: when we admit them (or see them in others), we feel less alone and more forgiving. The quote also carries a gently comic, humane outlook typical of Jerome: it treats “follies” not as damning sins but as the everyday absurdities that make people relatable. Sympathy, in this view, is rooted in humility and mutual vulnerability rather than idealized goodness.