Careful Words

parts (n.)

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!

Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,

See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 281.

A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;

Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:

Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.

There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.

  Of good natural parts and of a liberal education.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 267.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Now half appear'd

The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 463.