Use of Quotes as "Evidence" for Intelligent Truth

With the increase in voices represented in books II and III came an equally marked increase in quotes from notable thinkers either of the time or from antiquity, and in multiple languages.  Everyone, male or female, has someone to quote, including Voltaire, Montesquieu, Petrarch, Pope, Shakespeare, Milton, and at least a dozen others.  Even aside from direct quotes, Smith's characters often throw out comparisons such as "they treat him as a modern Tiresias" or  "he could have performed the Proteus of intrigue."  In my opinion, Smith has two motives for making this kind of literary addition.  First, she wants to prove to her readers that she is well read.  Smith must know that educated people will hesitate in taking political advice from a woman who writes children's books for a living.  Adding quotes all over the place from noted authors that any educated person would recognize gives her own education and knowledge credit.  Secondly, the characters who use these quotes then have conversations that introduce Smith's own thoughts on liberty, women's rights, slavery, and other topics, which every main character discusses (even Fanny and Geraldine have a lengthy conversation on the problems associated with a woman's "liberty").  Therefore, Smith must prove to her readers that these conversations come from well educated characters who know their literature on the topic, and the best way to do that is to have them reference that literature every chance they can.  This gives their arguments, which Smith claims as the utmost truth, some validity in their supposed education.  It would hardly have the same effect in a plot with uneducated farmers and their wives discussing politics as if they know everything!