To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great an… — Herman Melville

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.

Herman MelvilleNovelist · American · 1819 – 1891

More from Herman Melville

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity. — Herman Melville
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. — Herman Melville
Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone? — Herman Melville