Franz Werfel

Franz Viktor Werfel (10 September 1890 – 26 August 1945) was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet who wrote in German.

Quotes

Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.

Magnify the divine mystery and the holiness of mankind.
- Preface to Das Lied Von Bernadette [The Song of Bernadette] (1941)

Zwischen zu früh und zu spät, liegt immer nur ein Augenblick.
- Between too early and too late, there is never more than a moment.
  - Jacobowsky und der Oberst : Komödie einer Tragödie in drei Akten (1945), p. 52

Der sicherste Reichtum ist die Armut an Bedürfnissen.
- The safest wealth is the poverty of needs.
  - Zwischen oben und unten (1946), p. 315

Happiness is … the grace of being permitted to unfold … all the spiritual powers planted within us.
- As quoted in Journey to New Beginnings : Finding Peace Within (2006) by Debbie Ziemann, p. 167

That's how it always was:/growing among the columns of poetry./Big brother, it was no pleasure, no.
- Anna Margolin from the poem "To Franz Werfel," translated from Yiddish by Shirley Kumove in Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin (2005). Under the poem's title she quotes Werfel "How blissful we are/Who live in forms."

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
- As quoted in Philippine Studies (1953) by Ateneo de Manila, p. 269; also in Everest : The Mountaineering History (2000) by Walt Unsworth, p. 100; but this has also been attributed to Ignatius of Loyola in Think of an Elephant : Combining Science and Spirituality for a Better Life (2007) by Paul Bailey

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