‘What’s a sign that someone is way smarter than they let on?’ – 21 subtle hints there’s a galaxy-sized brain in the room

12.

‘They’re kinder. Kindness is just smart.’
–DogAlienInvisibleMan

13.

‘Rather than getting frustrated when they don’t know something, they get excited. I had a chemistry professor in college that was INSANELY smart, and when somebody asked a question she couldn’t answer, her eyes lit up as she said ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out!’ To her, not knowing something was just an opportunity to learn something new.’
–echoes122

14.

‘They don’t feel the need to contradict everyone’s comments and prove themselves.’
–Pickledili

15.

‘Honestly one of the most immediate signs of intelligence is controlling emotions, if you’re looking for a more scientific answer.

It’s not to say emotionally unstable people can’t be smart, there are lots of reasons people can be overly emotional (hormones’ are a great example), but statistically if someone is unable to control their anger, or fear, more often means their pre-frontal cortex is less well developed, which is also often the case for younger people just because it doesn’t develop as quickly as the part of your brain that actually houses emotion.

So someone who can keep their emotions in check, and be less reactionary in their responses, meaning they can pause, let the emotion fade, and then respond, often has a more developed logic process in their brain.’
–ljlee256

16.

‘For me, it is your ability to ask insightful questions.

During my PhD, I noticed that the really smart people could listen to a lecture on a topic that was tangential to their research and ask really insightful questions. I strove to be able to ask really good questions when presented with a topic that I was not an expert on that really pushed the lecturer on their knowledge/ideas.’
–Juls7243

17.

‘They’re quiet and only speak to add to the conversation, not to hear the sound of their own voice. Idiots are loud all of the time.’
–Revolutionary-Yak-47

18.

‘A client once referred to his (brilliant) young associate as having a ‘very Japanese’ style in meetings. I thought it was a borderline offensive comment, but what he meant was that this person was never in a rush to speak, but would wait until the rest of us had blurted out our hot takes or opinions or whatever and then say something extremely perceptive. But he had no need to dominate the discussion.’
–Asleep-Journalist-94

19.

‘Some engineers use a technique called ‘rubber duck debugging where they explain their problem to a toy duck and in the process will come up with a solution. A lot of times at work I feel like I am the rubber duck.’
–klink1

20.

‘They ask questions, that, when answered, bring more clarity to everyone in the room.’
–notneps

21.

‘Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.’
–sea_bac

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