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We all know that Theodore Roosevelt was a man of action. And likely whenever you think of something he said, it’s a quotation about action from one of his published speeches like “Speak softly, and carry a big stick” or his famous “Man in the Arena” quotation.

But his public addresses weren’t the only place where Roosevelt discussed the importance of action. In a June 5, 1908 letter to investigative journalist Lincoln Steffens, Roosevelt reflects on effectiveness in public life. While he agrees with Steffens that it is important to have ideals, he believes more-good can be done by trying to realize them, albeit imperfectly.

In the midst of this discussion, Roosevelt pens a pithy summation of his philosophy: “I believe in the men who take the next step; not those who theorize about the 200th step.”

And Roosevelt certainly lived up to this philosophy himself, leading the Rough Riders up Kettle Hill, transforming the presidency, and living life to the fullest—what Roosevelt calls the “joy of living” in his Autobiography.

In addition to reflecting on his own political philosophy, Roosevelt also discusses his opinions about several politicians of his day, including quite the zinger of a sentence about two senators he didn’t much care for: “Like Tillman, has advertised himself so that both he and Tillman are very popular in Chatauqua’s, where the people listen to them both, sometimes getting ideas that are wrong, and on the whole not getting any ideas at all and simply feeling the kind of pleasurable excitement that they would at the sight of a two-headed calf, or of a trick performed on a spotted circus horse.”