Jobs shows off the MacBook Air in 2008. (Image by Matthew Yohe.)

Steve Jobs shared his thoughts about what makes an entrepreneur successful in 1995. Even someone as brilliant as Jobs could have washed out without incredible diligence, but the creative brain he was born with is still far rarer than a great work ethic. (Thanks Newmark’s Door.) An excerpt:

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing.

There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don’t blame them. Its really tough and it consumes your life. If you’ve got a family and you’re in the early days of a company, I can’t imagine how one could do it. It’s pretty much an eighteen-hour day job, seven days a week, for a while.”