Verb

(en verb)

To declare with assurance or plainly and strongly; to state positively.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April

, author=Colin Allen , title=Do I See What You See? , volume=100, issue=2, page=168 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=Numerous experimental tests and other observations have been offered in favor of animal mind reading, and although many scientists are skeptical, others assert that humans are not the only species capable of representing what others do and don’t perceive and know.}}

he would often assert his beliefs to us

To use or exercise and thereby prove the existence of.

to assert one's authority

Salman Rushdie has asserted his right ... to be identified as the author of this work

To maintain or defend, as a cause or a claim, by words or measures; to vindicate a claim or title to; as, to assert our rights and liberties.

The quasi-judicial pre-grant process of asserting patent rights and appeals procedures during patent examination; 'to assert' patent rights means to defend or maintain patent rights.

(computer science) To make true; to make equal to 1. (rfex)

Verb

(expostulat)

To protest or remonstrate; to reason earnestly with a person on some impropriety of conduct.

* Jowett

Men expostulate with erring friends; they bring accusations against enemies who have done them a wrong.

* 1719,

The tears would run plentifully down my face when I made these reflections; and sometimes I would expostulate with myself why Providence should thus completely ruin His creatures, and render them so absolutely miserable; so without help, abandoned, so entirely depressed, that it could hardly be rational to be thankful for such a life.

* 1843 , '', book 2, ch. XI, ''The Abbot’s Ways

[…] he affectionately loved many persons to whom he never or hardly ever shewed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing to expostulate with him on the subject, he reminded me of Solomon: “Many sons I have; it is not fit that I should smile on them.”