Wonderful Fool (お馬鹿さん, Obaka-san?) is a novel by the Japanese author Shusaku Endō, published in 1959. The main character, Gaston Bonaparte (a relative to the famous Napoleon Bonaparte) arrives at the Yokohama seaport to visit an old pen friend of his living in Tokyo. Gaston is incredibly kind, innocent and naive, which causes different people to like him, help him, or take advantage of him. He never loses faith in humanity, however, and manages to make a deep impression on the most hardhearted persons.
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Famous quotes containing the words wonderful and/or fool:
“Voluntary dependence is the wonderful form of existence, and how could that be possible without love?”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water until he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)