put the same shoe on every foot

put the same shoe on every foot

English

Etymology

From the proverb, you cannot put the same shoe on every foot

Phrase

put the same shoe on every foot

1. To attempt to apply a single solution to different problems.
   • 1883, Victor Lafayette Conrad, The Luther Memorial, page 772:

     The king of England, who is your holiness's son, is not so like the rest of the world. We cannot put the same shoe on every foot.

   • 2007, Robert Mayhew, Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, →ISBN, page 122:

     You would laugh at a cobbler who should attempt to put the same shoe on every foot.

   • 2014 November 3, Francis Greenburger, “Incarcerating the Mentally Ill Makes Us All Less Safe”, in VICE News:

     Watch anything in a cage, that is run on a regulatory system of control, sensory deprivation and or sensory abuse, really really poor nutrition, no regard for individual dignity, trying to put the same shoe on every foot,etc.