Stronger than dirt.

Stronger than dirt. is best known as a late-20th-century American advertising slogan rather than a literary aphorism. It became widely recognized through television and print campaigns for Ajax household cleanser, where it functioned as a punchy, comparative claim about cleaning power. In that commercial context, the phrase is typically delivered as a tagline rather than attributed to a single speaker or writer, which helps explain its frequent listing as Anonymous. Because it circulated primarily through marketing materials and popular media, its “occasion” is less a discrete utterance than repeated use across a branded campaign aimed at mass audiences.

The phrase is a compact claim of superiority: whatever the product (or metaphorical force) is, it exceeds the toughness of “dirt,” a stand-in for stubborn grime, disorder, or contamination. Its punch comes from the hyperbolic comparison—dirt is not literally “strong,” but in everyday experience it can be hard to remove. In broader usage beyond advertising, the line can be repurposed to suggest resilience and effectiveness against entrenched problems (“stronger than dirt” as a metaphor for persistence), while retaining its original, slightly tongue-in-cheek tone.