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Contents
Foreword
Simple Pleasures
Kindness & Loyalty
Free & Equal
Creativity
Cleverness/Clever Council
Honour
Responsibility
Friendship & Fellowship
Wisdom of Aslan
Everyday Truths
Intelligence & Reason
Silly Sense
Common Sense
Bravery
A Lesson Learned
True Leadership
Fears
Reaping Evil
Bad Choices
Philosophy of Puddleglum
The Effect of Beauty
Faith
Heart’s Desires
Fortitude
The End & the Beginning
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
About the Publisher
Abbreviations used in this book:
MN—The Magician’s Nephew
LWW—The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
HHB—The Horse and His Boy
PC—Prince Caspian
VDT—The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
SC—The Silver Chair
LB—The Last Battle
The Wisdom of Narnia
Captivated by the spirited adventures of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, generations of readers have also been touched and inspired by their timeless wisdom, simple truths, and gentle humour. We come to understand, through excerpts from all seven books, the power of this special place that has been so important to readers for over fifty years.
There’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago.
LWW: 74
To sleep under the stars, to drink nothing but well water and to live chiefly on nuts and wild fruit, was a strange experience for Caspian after his bed with silken sheets in a tapestried chamber at the castle, with meals laid out on gold and silver dishes in the anteroom, and attendants ready at his call. But he had never enjoyed himself more. Never had sleep been more refreshing nor food tasted more savoury.
PC: 84
When it was almost dark Tirian heard a light pitter-patter of feet and saw some small creatures coming toward him…. Then, in a moment, they were all standing up on their hind legs, laying their cool paws on his knees and giving his knees snuffly animal kisses…. They fed him with oatcakes and fresh butter, and then with some more wine.
“Now hand up the water,” said the first Mouse, “and I’ll wash the King’s face. There is blood on it.”
LB: 42–44
“We’re free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you’re running away to Narnia, you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn’t your horse any longer. One might just as well say you’re her human.”
—Bree the Horse
HHB: 32
All this time the Lion’s song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backward and forward, was going on…. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge… [Polly] felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus…she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) “out of the Lion’s head.”
MN: 115
“Send Glenstorm, Sire. No one ever laughed at a Centaur.”
—Trufflehunter
PC: 178
“As we birds say, nests
