Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but†a wicked race of deceivers†took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely formintoathousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled bodyof Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them.We have not yet found them all†nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

-Milton,John
  Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing.

   For Spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their airy purposes, And works of love or enmity fulfil.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.423^31.

The time was out of joint, and he was only too delighted to have been born to set it right.

-Strachey, (Giles) Lytton
  Of Hurrell Froude. EminentVictorians,'Cardinal Manning'.