Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that the speaker finds the memoranda to be both difficult to read and heavy.
In this quote, Roosevelt employs humor to convey his disdain for the overwhelming and perhaps trivial nature of certain documents he perceives as burdensome. The exaggerated idea of being unable to lift the memoranda serves to illustrate how tedious and unnecessary they are, while also emphasizing the importance of clear and concise communication in leadership.
In practice
This quote could be used at a leadership seminar to emphasize the importance of clear communication.
There has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda. This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, that Americans have considerable industrial power - but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight. ... Let them tell that to the Marines!
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
A world turned into a stereotype, a society converted into a regiment, a life translated into a routine, make it difficult for either art or artists to survive. Crush individuality in society and you crush art as well. Nourish the conditions of a free life and you nourish the arts, too.
Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.
As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
Ballet: men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.
PIG, n. An animal ("Porcus omnivorus") closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
Let no man thirst for good beer.
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