Life & Wisdom Quote by William Strunk, Jr.

“Make definite assertions” is Strunk’s tiny manifesto against the cowardice that passes for professionalism. He isn’t just coaching style; he’s policing posture. The sentence reads like a drill sergeant’s bark because it’s meant to correct a familiar tic: writers who hide behind foggy qualifiers so they can’t be pinned down. “Tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal” piles up like a rap sheet, each adjective tightening the indictment. The rhythm matters: Strunk doesn’t argue, he sentences.

The intent is practical - clarity, economy, force - but the subtext is moral. To Strunk, weak prose signals weak thinking, or at least a willingness to let the reader do the heavy lifting. Definite assertions create accountability: if you claim something, you can be challenged, revised, disproved. Hedging becomes a way to look careful while dodging responsibility.

Context sharpens the edge. Strunk wrote in an era that prized plain style and institutional authority: newspapers consolidating, universities professionalizing, bureaucracy expanding. “Non-committal language” was becoming the house dialect of organizations - the memo, the committee report, the polite academic shrug. His admonition is a defense of the sentence as a unit of decision-making, not just description.

Of course, the irony is that modern writers often hedge for good reasons: uncertainty is real, and overstatement is its own vice. Strunk’s line endures because it’s less a ban on nuance than a demand for intention. If you’re going to qualify, do it with purpose - not because you’re afraid to be wrong.