Annals of Smart People Throughout History

Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.

[a 2013 tweet]

I’m very smart… my life has proven that I’m smart. I mean, I’ve had a life of success and I’ve had a life of victory.

[GQ, 2015] 

I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.

[Morning Joe, March 2016]

Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great.

[Phoenix, August 2017]

I’m smarter than them. I went to the best schools. They didn’t. Much more beautiful house. Much more beautiful apartment. Much more beautiful everything.

[Grand Rapids, March 2019]

—Donald J. Trump.

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Thales of Miletus.

All is in Flux. Excepting, that is, how smart I am. That bit isn’t in flux. It’s permanent. Which is how I know about Flux.

Pythagoras. 

Numbers are the key to the universe, and I know literally everything about numbers. So like, do the math. And guess which number I am. Yup: Numero Uno. 

Socrates.

Hey. Do you honestly think the freaking Delphic Oracle would lie about who the wisest person on earth is? Jesus—who will not exist for like another five hundred years or whatever. I rest my case.

Archimedes. 

Eureka! I’ve got it. And how! You wouldn’t even believe the amount of water my brain displaces.  

Marcus Aurelius. 

The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. I, on the other hand, will be very smart, a genius basically, like always. And while it’s generally true that All is opinion, not in this case, it ain’t.

Augustine of Hippo.

Lord, make me virtuous, but not yet. Not to worry, though, Lord, about making me beyond crazy brilliant. I am all set there, so.

Geoffrey Chaucer. 

Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe. And you know who is wys? Me, that’s hem. I am the wysest persoune that ever droue breth, pardee.  

Isaac Newton.

What Des-Cartes did was a good step… If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders of Giants. Ha-ha! I jest, clearly. For I am by far the noblest, most far-seeing Genius ever ever, all on my own, and Hooke can suck it.

Gottfried Leibniz. 

La nature ne fait jamais des sauts. Moi, on the other hand? Je fais toujours les sauts. Chaque jour. By which I mean—to dream this stuff up like I do… It’s not just intelligence, it’s beyond that, a gift—in the genes, probablement.  

Benjamin Franklin.

[T]he wisest man will receive lights and improve his progress, by seeing detailed the conduct of another wise man. Such as myself. I am well known to be a very, an extremely wise man, which doesn’t hurt, I can tell you, when it comes to the French ladies.

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace. 

What we know is little, and what we are ignorant of is immense. I use the term “we” loosely.  

Norbert Weiner. 

Since Leibniz there has perhaps been no man who has had a full command of all the intellectual activity of his day. UNTIL NOW.