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.
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 Halleck, Reuben Post
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 Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
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 Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
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
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 Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
