"As we have seen, those inspired by divine inspiration were amazingly steadfast. To cite just one example, the Mexican nun Sor Juana de la Cruz, when chastised by her confessor for her presumption in writing verse, replied that she could not help it and could not control her ability to do so; it came naturally to her and therefore must be a gift from God. From this she reasoned that she was entitled to write verse."

"Who is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others."

"One of our first figures of note was a feminist Mexican nun turned poetess called Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz. She was the wittiest writer in the Spanish language between the death of Calderón (1680) and the Romantic era."

"Her famous Reply to Sor Filotea (1693) defending her right to knowledge, is a major document in the struggle for women's intellectual independence; it was recently published in Barcelona as "The First Women's Manifesto." Sor Juana's poignant awareness of the suppressed potentialities of women makes her the first feminist of the New World and one of its greatest thus far."

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was the first feminist on this continent"

"I don't pretend to be anyone's voice. I have been very lucky to be published in Europe, and I say lucky because there are women who have been writing in Latin America since the seventeenth century, like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The problem is that few people ever talk about them. Their work is rarely taught at the universities, there is no literary criticism on them, and they are not published, translated or distributed."

"Just a few years ago, one could easily identify the women in all of Latin America who stood out in literature. Names like Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarború, Delmira Agustini, Claudia Lars, not to mention the greatest of them all, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who, five hundred years ago, took off her feminist gloves when she wrote, “Stupid men, who, without cause, accuse women,” words proclaimed rather shockingly."

"Probably the first official feminist in Mexican history was Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz, who lived from 1648 to 1695. During her lifetime, she was honored as the tenth Muse of Mexico, and known through the Americas and Europe for her wit and intelligence. She argued against a sexual double standard in her famous poem, "Hombres necios" (Foolish Men): "Which has the greater/sin when burned/By the same lawless fever:/She who is amorously deceived,/Or he, the sly deceiver?/Or which deserves the sterner blame,/Though each will be a sinner:/She who becomes a whore for pay,/Or he who pays to win her?" Sor Juana argued for equality in education, but did not trust men to act as teachers. She suggested that a group of self-educated women should teach young females, instructing them not only in elementary subjects, but in literature, history, science, and theology as well."

"lady of mine and of all beloved women distant and hallucinated magician of verse, stranger to time, barefoot among the convents."