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.
We laugh a lot. That's for sure. Sure beats the alternative, doesn't it?
I am never honored. My career is hilarious to me. I am either under the radar or over the radar.
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
A man who has spent most of his adult life trying out a series of patent medicines is always an optimist.
You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest.
The themes that make one laugh always stem from poverty, hunger, misery, old age, sickness, and death. These are the themes that make Italians laugh, anyway.
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