bed of Procrustes

Like the bed of Procrustes, fashions are compelled to suit every one.

From Dress as a Fine Art With Suggestions on Children's Dress by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield

The seat of ideals, then, in one's mind, should be, as it were, a lounge, over which these hangings may drape and flap harmlessly; but it may easily become as the bed of Procrustes.

From Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) And Two Other Reminiscences by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Let the student of singing beware of the numerous impostors who claim to have a “Method,” a sort of bed of Procrustes, which the victim, whether long or short, is made to fit.

From Style in Singing by W. E. Haslam

Theology was ever the bed of Procrustes, to be adapted to which, the limbs of travellers, if too long were cut off, and if too short were lengthened.

From Good Sense by Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'Holbach

Think what that must be even to a man innocent of crime, and feel how far worse than the bed of Procrustes it must be to one like me.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 by Various