“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.”

— Leonardo Da Vinci

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XXI Letters. Personal Records. Dated Notes.

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363

Italian Renaissance polymath 1452–1519

Laurie Zoloth (1950) American ethicist

"Interrupting Your Life: An Ethics for the Coming Storm" (2014)

“I’m clearly a small-minded person, with my own petty grievances. Hopefully, my work transcends my own petty grievances and small-minded nature. It’s best for me to remain small-minded on an emotional level and broad-minded on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that makes me do my work. Neurosis, obsession, wanting people to like me, wanting my parents to feel bad for underrating me, making a lot of money, power, social status, wanting girls to like me or just to meet one girl on a job. All of this doesn’t matter as long as the work that I do to achieve these small-minded needs is a lot more interesting than me and my reasons for making it”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

SOMA Interview

“I'll never tire of the people so vexed by me they have to insist I am irrelevant. I may be irrelevant, but I clearly matter to you.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

Twitter post https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1038118908992081920 (7 September 2018)
2010s, 2018

“Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Source: The Poet and the Donkey: A Novel

“I can not get over everything you did for me in that first day [for his support to hang her works on the 7th Impressionist exhibition, Spring 1882], it seems to me that you are working yourself to death, and all on my account. This touches me deeply and vexes me at the same time.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

Berthe Morisot, in a letter to her husband Eugene Manet, 1882; as cited in Impressionist quartet, ed. Jeffrey Meyers; publishers, Harcourt, 2005, p. 120
1881 - 1895

“So you interrupted my date to make fun of me for still living with my parents. Couldn't you have done that on a night I didn't have a date? That's most nights, in case you're curious.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“My parents taught me that an NDPer in Alberta has to work three times harder than any other politician to earn votes. It's a lesson I won't forget.”

Rachel Notley (1964) 17th Premier of Alberta

On her parents Grant and Sarah Notley. "Knocking at the door of the Dome." http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/insight/story.html?id=b13ff6fa-715c-4810-ad19 April 14, 2007

“What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

“I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

“On working alone: "I enjoy working alone. I know myself, and I know what I want… and all this allows me to create my music before my thoughts can interrupt."”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

1979

“It vexes me greatly that having to earn my living has forced me to interrupt the work and to attend to small matters.”

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Leonardo Da Vinci 363

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