Unfortunately, the real world choice tends to be beautiful and intelligent or ugly and stupid. Good looks are correlated with intelligence, as I’ve documented many times on other questions here on fluther. I don’t know why they seem to come together. I suspect it has to do with the attention people get due to their looks.
From a success point of view, I think I’d choose beauty. People are more likely to be nice to you if you are beautiful, and while people say that looks fade, I think they still help you out later in life, especially for men.
Nerds are presumably the quintessence of intelligence and success resulting from intelligence. But there again, I think, we see that the most successful nerds are also pretty good looking ones. How many women out there think Bill Gates is too nerdy to be bad looking? Would you turn him down based on looks alone?
In any case, knowledge can be learned. So I’d start with looks and pick up the rest later on. Knowledge, experience and, if one is truly compassionate, wisdom will all arrive eventually.