12 Genuine Signs of Intelligence You Can't Fake

Every single person that watches this is thinking “ya that’s me”

Number 13: Understanding the difference between knowledge and intelligence. Knowledge is the acquisition of facts. Intelligence is the effective processing and application of those facts. Any fool with a good memory can recite endless facts, but it takes intelligence to create novel ideas from them.

A great benefit of being intelligent is that you re never bored. There is always something to think about, to discover, to figure out how and why things are they way they are.

You’ve just described my late husband to a tee. He was quiet and super-smart, but when I would compliment his wonderful attributes and his personality, his invariable response was, “I’m just a guy.” He was inspiring and kind and wise in so many ways, and he loved to make us laugh with his brilliant quick wit. The world would be a profoundly more wonderful place if there were more people like him, and I miss him every minute of every day.

“Don’t judge a person on what they know… Judge them on the kinds of questions they ask”.

Ernest Hemingway once said, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." Being around fools is very painful.

Intelligence is like wealth. Those that have it don’t brag about it.

Many years ago, a reporter asked Einstein how does it feel to be the smartest man on the planet, to which he replied, I would not know, you would have to ask Nicola Tesla.

About 40 years ago in college I took a structural anthropology course. One of the books in the course described over 112 different kinds of 'intelligence' that had been identified up to that time. So I'd have to conclude that recognizing signs of 'intelligence' requires one to possess a very broad spectrum of these 'intelligences' in order to perceive them. Just because you don't 'see' a sign doesn't mean there isn't some type of intelligence there -- just that you may not be tuned into that particular type.

“Intelligent people do not tie their self worth to their ego.” - everyone in the chat: explaining how smart they actually are😁

Even though I dropped out of high school, I consider myself a life-long learner, and am always learning new things.

My favorite people are those who are smart, funny and kind 🥰🌍

"Intelligent people have the WONDERFUL gift of self awareness." It's only wonderful for other people, it sucks being self aware because you're always thinking about what you're doing wrong.

When you add mental illness to the equation you definitely can have a very intelligent person that doesn't jibe with some of these points. I've known people who were incredibly intelligent yet had tons of struggles with things like self control, emotional instability, self acceptance, complete loss of desire to engage their curiosity or creativity anymore, etc. because they battled with their mental health.

I'm not too smart compared to the smartest, but I'm smart enough to not be too worried about how smart I'm not.

I am surprised that the most obvious indicator of intelligence wasn't mentioned. While it is implied it was not directly cited. It is pattern recognition. Spotting trends, patterns, basically being able to connect or see patterns out of what is seemingly chaos. Noticing commonality when there doesn't appear to be any.

Empathy. Time alone. Observing others in a group before speaking. Insatiable appetite for learning. Lifelong learner. These are some of the most active qualities that I use consistently.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

My parents always believed that the only interest I had was horses. Yes, I was one of those horse crazy kids. After I had moved out, my parents came to visit. My mother noticed my overloaded bookcase and pointed it out to my father. They were not in the least surprised by the number of books on horses and training (close to 200), but stunned by the number of books that weren't (not including novels). Everything from Ancient Egypt, Architecture, Interior Design, Woodworking, Sewing, Physics, World History, House Construction, Economics, Business (various), Astrophysics, Gardening, Dog Training, and so much more. I'm a bit more limited in the novels I read. Primarily mysteries and science fiction. I like to design things and take them right through to the building phase. I also enjoy painting, and wanted to take up musical instruments when I was younger. Still might. Variety is the spice of life. The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

I thought I knew something about a topic when I was (politely) interrupted by a 9 year old. She wasn't particularly "smart" but she was right about what she was saying. I corrected myself and complimented her. Since then, I have tried to have a child-like curiosity about life in general and it has made me more open to ideas. Great video! Thanks.