How to Become an Intellectual: 100 Mandatory Maxims to Metamorphose into the Most Learned of Thinkers

A Capacious and Quintessential Guide

Maxims:
#1: Carry a Scholarly Book (at All Times)
#12: Know Your Manet from Your Monet
#14: Be Proficient in at Least One Classical Instrument
#64: Learn to Recite Romantic-Era Poetry on Cue

If you think you need a PhD in Greek and Roman philosophy from an Ivy League school to call yourself an intellectual, reconsider your supposition. While you may envy the initials that follow distinguished names of professors and the intellectual elite, it's not the mortar board and scholarly robes you need—it's the obscure esoterica. In this primer, you'll learn to walk the talk of the intelligentsia, leaving simpletons and pseudo-intellectuals in your dust.

Inside How to Become an Intellectual, you will find the prodigious truths every self-respecting learned person lives by. This code of scholarly behavior allows aspiring high-brows like yourself to educate their unfortunate lessers, amaze their Mensa friends, and impress their fellow wise people—one distinguished bon mot at a time!

Nick Kolakowski is a magazine editor and journalist. Currently a staff editor for eWeek.com, Nick has written for McSweeney's, Playboy, WebMD, AutoWeek, Washington Flyer, LOST Magazine, AARP the Magazine, and DC Style, and freelanced for The Washington Post and Washington City Paper.