What does this quote mean?

“Use the active voice.”

The rule favors direct sentence construction when it makes agency clearer, while the surrounding discussion still allows passive voice when context requires it.

Source note: The Elements of Style, Chapter III, Rule 10, Project Gutenberg #37134; Strunk immediately qualifies the rule by noting legitimate uses of passive construction.

“Put statements in positive form.”

Strunk recommends stating what is true or intended directly when possible instead of making the reader reconstruct the point from repeated negation.

Source note: The Elements of Style, Chapter III, Rule 11, Project Gutenberg #37134; the rule concerns sentence construction, not positive-thinking philosophy.

“To a poet nothing can be useless.”

Creative attention turns a wide range of experience into material; knowledge that seems unrelated can later supply images, comparisons or instruction.

Source note: Rasselas, Chapter X; spoken by Imlac in his account of learning the poet’s craft through broad observation.

“In a word, literature is my Utopia.”

Books give Keller a realm of freedom and belonging in which physical barriers matter less than imagination, language, and thought.

Source note: The Story of My Life; Keller summarizes the central place of literature in her intellectual life.

“A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing.”

Partial knowledge can create confidence before understanding has become deep enough to recognize its limits.

Source note: An Essay on Criticism; Pope follows the line with the image of drinking deeply from the Pierian spring.

“As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”

The mock rule is comic in its bluntness but also functions as concise writing advice: unnecessary modifiers can weaken direct expression when the writer is unsure they earn their place.

Source note: Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XI epigraph; the sentence follows the three-part author compliment in the Calendar sequence.