"Simone Weil(French philosopher, radical political activist and spiritual thinker, 1909–1943). Weil was a highly gifted student of philosophy and a non-conformist thinker who dedicated herself to teaching and helping the lowest rungs of workers. So thorough was her identification with the workers that she refused to eat more than them, a factor that likely contributed to her death. She is the author of Gravity and Grace and numerous posthumously published texts."