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.

Actually the quote is not authentic but made up from a novel by Dmitri Merejkowski (w:Dmitry Merezhkovsky) entitled "The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci" (La Résurrecton de Dieux 1901), translated from Russian into English by Herbert Trench. G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London, The Knickerbocker Press. There, in Book (i.e. chapter) VI, entitled The Diary of Giovanni Boltraffio, one finds the following | The master [Leonardo da Vinci] permits harm to no living creatures, not even to plants. Zoroastro tells me that from an early age he has abjured meat, and says that the time shall come when all men such as he will be content with a vegetable diet, and will think on the murder of animals as now they think on the murder of men (p. 226 books.google). | However, despite the quote's false attribution, da Vinci was in fact a vegetarian.