There's this myth floating around startup land that says you just pound away forever and never give up—that if you persevere long enough, success will inevitably come knocking.

But that's bullshit.

Don't get me wrong....I'm a huge believer in persistence.

But there's a crucial difference between productive persistence and just being stubborn.

And knowing which one you're practicing?

Well, that's the hard part.

The practice of perseverance is the discipline of the noblest virtues. To run well, we must run to the end. It is not the fighting but the' conquering that gives a hero his title to renown.

The task of finding a purpose in life also calls for perseverance. I have seen many young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find out how deaf the world is, they withdraw to wait and save their strength. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little peak from which they can make themselves heard. Each thinks that in a few years he will have gained a standing, and then he can use his power for good. Finally the time comes, and with it a strange discovery: he has lost his horizon of thought. Without perseverance, ambition and a sense of responsibility have evaporated.

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. I'm sure its been done but its rough. Its pretty much an eighteen hour day job, seven days a week for awhile. Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you're not going to survive. You're going to give it up. So you've got to have an idea, or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you're passionate about otherwise you're not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. I think that's half the battle right there.

Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits.

PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

Invariably will you find perseverance exemplified as the radical principle in every truly great character. It facilitates, perfects, and consolidates the execution of the plan conceived, and renders profitable its results when attained. By continuing to advance steadily in the same way, light constantly increases, obstacles disappear, efficient habits are confirmed, experience is acquired, the use of the best means is reduced to easy action, and success becomes more sure.

Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.

Perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our asylums.

because much more often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

What good is patience without persistence? Doing anything big & bold in life is hard work. Learning to persist is fundamental to your success.

Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.

What good is patience without persistence? Doing anything big & bold in life is hard work. Learning to persist is fundamental to your success.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life — that’s persistence.