Henry David Thoreau (1827-1862)

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."


A poet and naturalist, Henry David Thoreau would probably reject being considered a hero for the environment or any of the other social causes he championed. Thoreau was a strong advocate for simple living and individual resistance to unjust government, famously writing, "government is best which governs not at all." Thoreau spent two years living in a meager cabin by Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., and Thoreau's writings especially Walden and Civil Disobedience, have influenced activists like Ghandi and Martin Luther King. But the ideas that came out of Walden also laid the conceptual groundwork for much of what we consider 'environmental ethics' today. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)