The following story came to me from a good friend, a true chassid:
There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of
nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail
in
the back fence.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it
gradually
dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to
drive
those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told
his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out
one
nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father
that
all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him
to
the fence. “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the
fence.
The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they
leave a
scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, it
won’t matter how many times you say ‘I’m sorry,’ the wound is still
there. A
verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”