bed of Procrustes
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
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
The stanza becomes a bed of Procrustes; and the thoughts of the unfortunate author are alternately racked and curtailed to fit their new receptacle.
From Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay
The bed of Procrustes, madam, was a bed to which all who lay upon it had to be conformed.
From Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson
Ben Jonson complained that it compels all ideas, irrespective of their worth, to fill a space of exactly fourteen lines, and that it therefore operates on the same principle as the bed of Procrustes.
From Halleck's New English Literature by Reuben Post Halleck
