Are you more intelligent than Leonardo da Vinci?

[BigSoonerFan]

"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."

This quote has long been attributed to da Vinci, although it has since been shown to be an error but his views on animals are very similar. In The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci, Edward MacCurdy wrote: "…The mere idea of permitting the existence of unnecessary suffering, still more that of taking life, was abhorrent to him. Vasari tells, as an instance of his love of animals, how when in Florence he passed places where birds were sold he would frequently take them from their cages with his own hand, and having paid the sellers the price that was asked would let them fly away in the air, thus giving them back their liberty.

That this horror of inflicting pain was such as to lead him to be a vegetarian is to be inferred from a reference which occurs in a letter sent by Andrea Corsali to Giuliano de’Medici, in which, after telling him of an Indian race called Gujerats, who neither eat anything that contains blood nor permit any injury to any living creature, he adds ‘like our Leonardo da Vinci.’ "

On a similar note, a comedian I was listening to last week mentioned that Einstein had been divorced. He suggested that wedding vows should be changed in the future to reflect Einsein's failure in marriage. Instead of "Do you take....", it should be "Do you think you're smarter than Einstein?".

I guess you had to be there.....