History Main / PlatoIsAMoron

* Reed Richards of ''TheFantasticFour'' is widely regarded as the smartest human in the universe. Even his enemies- The Wizard, The Mad Thinker, The Mole Man and others- have great respect for his intellect, if only because they think he is the one man on Earth capable of appreciating what they have done. But then we get DoctorDoom, the one man on the entire Marvel Universe who thinks Reed is a hack, a fraud, and a complete and utter moron, and is fairly fond of reminding everyone in earshot of his feelings Every. Single. Issue.

->'''Vizzini:''' Let me put it this way--have you ever heard of Creator/{{Plato}}? Creator/{{Aristotle}}? {{Socrates}}?

* ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock from the Sun]]

* ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' provides the page quote for InsufferableGenius while invoking this trope:

* In [[PGWodehouse P.G. Wodehouse's]] "The Clicking of Cuthbert," Russian novelist Vladimir Brusiloff opines: "No novelists any good except me. Sovietski—yah! Nastikoff—bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. [[SelfDeprecation P.G. Wodehouse]] and Tolstoy not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me."

* Mr. Mechanical from ''FreedomForce'' is a [[MadArtist disgraced architect]] with an army of [[HumongousMecha giant robots]] trying to destroy a city both because of its "inferior designs" and because they "sabotaged" one of his buildings (in truth, the building collapsed on its own). In his final rampage, he makes insulting remarks about Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright.

->'''Vizzini:''' Let me put it this way--have you ever heard of {{Plato}}? {{Aristotle}}? {{Socrates}}?

* In [[PGWodehouse P.G. Wodehouse's]] "The Clicking of Cuthbert," Russian novelist Vladimir Brusiloff opines: "No novelists any good except me. Sovietski—yah! Nastikoff—bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. [[CelebrityParadox P.G. Wodehouse]] and Tolstoy not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me."

* The {{Chessmaster}} in the ''[[TwoThousandAD 2000 AD]]'' strip ''Caballistics, Inc.'' is one Ethan Kostabi, an eccentric 1970s former rock star [[FictionalCounterpart strongly resembling]] DavidBowie. Whenever Kostabi's success as a musician is described, comparisons are always made to Bowie, and Bowie is always described as having been greatly inferior—having sold fewer albums and having "scavenged a career out of the discarded fads and influences that Ethan left in his wake".

* {{House}} has occasionally referred to other respected members of the medical community as "idiots". A rare example of this being [[{{JustifiedTrope}} justified]], as House usually ''does'' turn out to be smarter than they are.

* In ''{{Portal2}}'', after being called a "[[BerserkButton moron]]" one too many times, [[spoiler:Wheatley]] decided to prove his intelligence by reading [[NiccoloMachiavelli Machiavelli]] (or claiming to, anyway) and commenting on how ''easy'' it was.

'''Sally''': ''[reading headline]'' "Physics professor calls [[AlbertEinstein Einstein]] idiot; PlatoIsAMoron proclaims self much smarter."

'''Sally''': ''[reading headline]'' "Physics professor calls [[AlbertEinstein Einstein]] idiot; [[PlatoIsAMoron proclaims self much smarter.]]"

->'''Dick''': I made the front page of ''The Daily Badgerian'' again.\\

->'''Vizzini:''' Morons.

->'''Man in Black:''' You really think you're smarter than me?

-->[[spoiler:GLaDOS]]: [[/folder]]

[[folder: Yes. ]]

->''"You've heard of {{Plato}}? {{Aristotle}}? {{Socrates}}? Morons!"''
-->-- '''Vizzini''', ''Film/ThePrincessBride''

This is a form of boast where a person claims that he is the best at something by bringing up the names of people who are well known for being good at that thing and then claiming that all of those people are second rate compared to him. May be a type of behavior found in the {{Narcissist}}, who naturally believes that he's the best at everything.

[[AC: Comics]]

[[AC: {{Film}}]]

* At one point in the film adaptation of ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'', Adrian Veidt of [[MegaCorp Veidt Enterprises]] boasts to the heads of major corporations that he's worth more than all of them combined and can "buy and sell them all three times over". At least one of the other corporate representatives Adrian is addressing directly is a RealLife figure—[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Iacocca Lee Iacocca]], who is known for having revived the Chrysler Corporation in TheEighties.

[[AC: {{Literature}}]]
* The JamesThurber short story "Something to Say" is built around Eliot Vereker, a supposedly great author whose reputation is based entirely on disparaging really great authors, ''e.g.'', "Santayana has weight: he's a ton of feathers. Proust was sick. If Voltaire did not exist, it would not be necessary to invent him, ''etc., etc.''"
* In [[PGWodehouse P.G. Wodehouse's]] "The Clicking of Cuthbert," Russian novelist Vladimir Brusiloff opines: "No novelists any good except me. Sovietski—yah! Nastikoff—bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. [[CelebrityParadox P.G. Wodehouse]] and Tolstoy not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me."
* In ''A Study In Scarlet'', Dr. Watson praises SherlockHolmes by comparing him to EdgarAllanPoe's Auguste Dupin and Emile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq. Holmes counters that "Dupin was a very inferior fellow" and "Lecoq was a miserable bungler."

[[AC: LiveActionTV]]
* {{House}} has occasionally referred to other respected members of the medical community as "idiots". A rare example of this being [[{{JustifiedTrope}} justified]], as House usually ''does'' turn out to be smarter than they are.
* Simon [[{{InvertedTrope}} inverts]] this in ''{{Firefly}}'', describing how, although he's incredibly intelligent, he's not even second-rate compared to River:
-->I am very smart. I went to the best Med-Acad in Osiris, top three percent of my class, finished my internship in eight months. "Gifted" is the term. So when I tell you that my little sister makes me look like an idiot child, I want you to understand my full meaning.
* Happens in the ''Flight of the Concords'' episode "Tough Bret":
-->"Eminem is not very good. 50 Cent is not very good. Snoop Dogg is not very good. Mos Def is not very good. But the Rhymnocerous is very very good!"

[[AC: VideoGames]]
* In ''Tony Hawk's American Wasteland'', the main character says this in reference to a well-known {{Badass}} named Iggy Van Zandt:
-->'''Main Character:''' "Iggy's a punk. I'm a freaking badass."
* ''BaldursGate'': [[InsufferableGenius Edwin]] gives us this if you [[StopPokingMe repeatedly annoy him]]:
-->''"[[ForgottenRealms Elminster]] ''this!'' [[{{Badass}} Elminster]] ''that!'' Give ''me'' [[WizardsLiveLonger 2,000 years]] and [[NiceHat a pointy hat]], and I'll kick his arse!"''

-->[[spoiler:GLaDOS]]: [[AC:Yes.]]

[[AC: Real Life]]

* [[OverlyLongName Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim]] took this to its logical extent by naming himself as Paracelsus. Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist who had written what had been one of the seminal tracts on medicine from Rome to his era, including such things as surgery, identification of the fever as a defense mechanism, and cancer, and the name "Paracelsus" literally meant that [[AltumVidetur Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus]] [[MeaningfulName Bombastus]] [[InsufferableGenius von Hohenheim]] was "greater than Celsus." To be fair, in the time of [[RunningGag Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus]] *gasp* [[RunningGag von Hohenheim]], the primary method of medical treatment was purging and bloodletting stemming from the "humourism" and traditional ancient treatments from the golden era of Rome and Greece passed down from Hippocrates and Galen, so he may have had some reason to buff his already-copious ego.
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->''"You've heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!"''

-->''"You've heard of Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!"''
-->— '''Vizzini''', ''ThePrincessBride'' ([[CaptainObvious boasting about his intelligence]])

* As indicated by the page quote, Vizzini from ''ThePrincessBride'' thinks that he is smarter than Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.

* [[OverlyLongName Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim]] took this to its logical extent by naming himself as Paracelsus. Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist who had written what had been one of the seminal tracts on medicine from Rome to his era, including such things as surgery, identification of the fever as a defense mechanism, and cancer, and the name "Paracelsus" literally meant that [[AltumVidetur Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus]] [[MeaningfulName Bombastus]] [[InsufferableGenius von Hohenheim]] was "greater than Celsus." To be fair, in the time of [[RunningGag Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus]] *gasp* [[RunningGag von Hohenheim]], the primary method of medical treatment was purging and bloodletting stemming from the "humourism" and traditional ancient treatments from the golden era of Rome and Greece passed down from Hippocrates to his contemporary Galen, so he may have had some reason to buff his already-copious ego.

* [[OverlyLongName Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim]] took this to its logical extent by referring to himself as Paracelsus. Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist who had written what had been one of the seminal tracts on medicine from Rome to his era, including such things as surgery, identification of the fever as a defense mechanism, and cancer, and the name "Paracelsus" literally meant that [[FullNameBasis Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus]] [[MeaningfulName Bombastus]] [[InsufferableGenius von Hohenheim]] was "greater than Celsus." To be fair, in the time of [[RunningGag Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus]] *gasp* [[RunningGag von Hohenheim]], the primary method of medical treatment was purging and bloodletting stemming from the "humourism" and traditional ancient treatments from the golden era of Rome and Greece passed down from Hippocrates to his contemporary Galen, so he may have had some reason to buff his already-copious ego.

Note that the insulted person does not have to be someone who is well known for the trait in RealLife. It could be a person who is known for it in-universe. In this case, his fame will be established beforehand.