The search for signs and wonders is always vulgar; it defiles every great spirit who compromises with it, because it puts the miracle in place of the truth.

That which gives a wonder its only dignity and significance is the spiritual power which it evidences and the spiritual knowledge which it conveys.

To the greatest of teachers this hunger for miracles was a bitter experience; he who came with the mystery of the heavenly love in his soul must have felt defiled by the homage rendered as to a necromancer, a doer of strange things.

The curiosity which draws men to the masters of the arts has no real honour in it; the only recognition which is real and lasting is that which springs from the perception of truth and beauty disclosed anew in some noble form.

Prospero was a magician, but he was much more and much greater than a wonder-worker; not Caliban, but Ferdinand and Miranda and Gonzalo, are the true judges of his power.
Prospero was the master spirit of the world which moved about him.