...speak and remove all doubt

Paul Moore: It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room.

Jane Craig: No. It's awful.

That bit of dialogue is from one of my favorite movies ever, "Broadcast News." Holly Hunter plays Jane Craig, a high-strung TV news producer. At first you think her response is egotistical, that she's well aware she's the smartest person in the room and not afraid to let everyone know. But if you think about it, it shows vulnerability. It betrays the pressure on her, self-inflicted, maybe, but still, the pressure to be the smartest, the best, at everything, all the time. I can't stand people who flaunt their intelligence just for the sake of flaunting it, but her character doesn't do that. She isn't pompous, doesn't really have that inflated sense of self when you think of intellectuals. Because in my experience, the "intellectuals" are never the smartest people in the room.

When you're smart, you don't have to go around telling people you're smart. They already know. And talking about how smart you are, really, just shows that you're actually an idiot.