
Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)
The Highest of the High (1953)
Context: Mere intellectuals can never understand me through their intellect. If I am the Highest of the High, it becomes impossible for the intellect to gauge me, nor is it possible for my ways to be fathomed by the limited human mind.
I am not to be attained by those who, loving me, stand reverently by in rapt admiration. I am not for those who ridicule me and point at me with contempt. To have a crowd of tens of millions flocking around me is not what I am for.
Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)
कला र जीवन (Art and Life)
Art and Life
Context: Even Truth is of many types, like – Imaginative Truth, Practical Truth and Philosophical Truth. That which is in three times, that is called Truth and God itself is the first and the last truth. But in practical life, truth takes many forms and as the practical truth I understand the sensible world's hard comprehensible truth. The one attained by the research of intellect, I call philosophical truth and imaginative that which illustrates through the subtle pictures of the mind. To say the stone is hard is practical truth, saying that adding up one and one the result will be two and through the existence of creation there is truth I call philosophical truth; and saying things like seeing Sarasvati talked with her, I understand as being the imaginative truth. For me, practicality is limited; philosophy, intellect is blind; I enjoy imaginative truth the most and through it find the glimpses of God
Yo no estimo tesoros ni riquezas;
y así, siempre me causa más contento
poner riquezas en mi pensamiento
que no mi pensamiento en las riquezas.
Sonnet 146, as translated by Edith Grossman in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works (2014)
Alternate translation: I do not value treasures or riches; it always gives me more pleasure to put wealth in my thought than thought in my wealth.
The Voyage into the Dark (1961); also in My Life and Views (1968), p. 154
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"
¿En perseguirme, mundo, qué interesas?
¿En qué te ofendo, cuando sólo intento
poner bellezas en mi entendimiento
y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?
Sonnet 146, as translated by Edith Grossman in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works (2014)
Source: Five Questions Concerning the Mind (1495), pp. 203-204
from Preface to Poems of Passion 1883 edition
Variant: Science tells me God must exist.
My mind tells me I'll never understand God.
My heart tells me I'm not meant to.
[Vittoria Vetra]
Source: Angels & Demons