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Writers rarely get IQ numbers unless they were also famously quick — Voltaire got both a reputation and a retrospective estimate.
Volume and precocity are what historiometry can see. They are a real signal and a narrow one — the method cannot distinguish reasoning ability from opportunity, patronage and a very long working life.
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →François-Marie Arouet took the name Voltaire in his early twenties, shortly after a spell in the Bastille for satirising the regent. He spent much of his life in exile or near it — in England, in Prussia, and finally at Ferney on the Swiss border, from where he conducted an enormous correspondence.
He wrote in nearly every form available: tragedy, epic, history, philosophy, and the pamphlets that made him dangerous. His campaign to clear Jean Calas — a Protestant executed on a false charge in 1762 — is the case usually cited as the beginning of the modern public intellectual.
That volume and range are precisely what historiometric estimates respond to. They are also why his figure should be read as a statement about a documented career rather than about a mind.
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Voltaire sits among the highest estimates in the historiometric literature, and the reason is structural rather than flattering. The method rewards documented early output, and few people in history left more of it.
He was writing publicly in his early twenties, was imprisoned for it, and produced plays, histories, pamphlets and philosophy continuously for six decades. His surviving correspondence runs to many thousands of letters. A method that counts documented achievement will rank that extraordinarily highly.
Which is worth stating plainly: the estimate partly measures how much paper survived, and how long he lived to produce it. That is a real limitation of historiometry, not a criticism of Voltaire.
How we read a number →Level with Newton at the very top of Cox’s table — which says as much about how much of his early output survived as about Voltaire.
The collected works and many thousands of surviving letters — the documentary base historiometry draws on, and the reason his estimate sits where it does.
The published output the estimate reasons from.
The figures that circulate for Voltaire, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
The figure most often published, drawn from the historiometric literature and stripped of its caveats.
Voltaire predates intelligence testing by roughly two centuries. The estimates come from historiometric work that reads early achievement from the biographical record — a method that ranks prolific, well-documented writers very highly by construction.
The figures cluster at the top of the historiometric scale, which reflects how much of his output survived as much as anything about him.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Unknowable. He predates intelligence testing by roughly two centuries; the figures quoted are historiometric estimates.
Because the method rewards documented early output, and writers leave more early documentation than almost anyone else. That is a bias in the method, not a finding about writers.
Candide, his campaigns against religious persecution and judicial abuse, and a vast body of letters, plays, histories and pamphlets.
No. He was born François-Marie Arouet and adopted the pen name Voltaire in his early twenties.
Because it is the origin of most historical IQ estimates still circulating. Knowing where a number came from is more useful than the number.
Less than they look. The method rewards documented early output, and writers leave more of it than almost anyone — that is a bias in the method, not a finding about writers.
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other writers profiles, starting with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Portrait © Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait © Debbie Rowe / The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait by Christopher Smith, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — a work of the U.S. federal government, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.
Thirty questions, scored against general-population benchmarks. Your score, your percentile, your ability breakdown and a printable IIF certificate.
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