No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well as the truth. This alone wears well.
—Walden[N]o storms, no dust can dim its surface ever fresh;—a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush,—this the light-dust cloth,—which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.
—WaldenNo wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions in a precious casket.
—WaldenNot how is the idea expressed in stone, or on canvas or paper, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist.
—A Week on the Concord and Merrimack RiversNot till half a mile further my doubting companion feels another on his nose also, and I get one [in] my eye, and soon after I see the countless dimples in the puddles on the ice. So measured and deliberate is Nature always.
—Journal, 14 February 1859Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
—WaldenNot to grieve long for any action, but to go immediately and do freshly and otherwise, subtracts so much from the wrong.
—Journal, 9 January 1842Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.
—Journal, 22 March 1842Nothing is so attractive and unceasingly curious as character. There is no plant that needs such tender treatment, there is none that will endure so rough. It is the violet and the oak.
—Journal, 30 November 1841Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.
—Thoreau to Lidian Emerson, 22 May 1843Now I go a-fishing and a-hunting every day, but omit the fish and the game, which are the least important part. I have learned to do without them.
—Journal, 26 January 1853