"He [Adam Smith] quoted some passages in Defoe, which breathed, as he thought, the true spirit of English verse."
— Daniel Defoe

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandChildren's authorsSatirists from EnglandJournalists from England
Original Language: English

Sources

Amicus, article dated 9 April 1791 in The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer (11 May 1791), quoted in Adam Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. J. C. Bryce and A. S. Skinner (1983), p. 230