Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language[dubious – discuss] and is less well known for his poetry. Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irishsatirist essayist political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs then for the Tories) poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral Dublin.