Once there was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the fence.
The first day the boy hammered 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily 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 his 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 one day the young boy told his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. The fence would never be the same.
“When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like those nails,” his father said.
从前，有个小男孩脾气很糟糕。他的父亲给了他一包钉子，告诉他只要发一次脾气，就必须往篱笆上钉一颗钉子。
小男孩光是第一天就往篱笆上钉了37颗钉子。接下来的几周时间里，他学会了收敛自己的脾气，于是，每天钉的钉子数量开始减少起来。他发现不发火比把钉子钉进篱笆要简单些。
终于有一天，小男孩再也不发脾气了。他把这个情况告诉了父亲，父亲建议他在接下来的每天里，只要有一次做到不发脾气，就从篱笆上拔出一颗钉子。
日子一天天过去，有一天，小男孩告诉父亲所有的钉子都已经拔完了。父亲拉着儿子的手，领他走到篱笆跟前。他们发现篱笆再也不是原来的模样了。
“说气话的时候，会在人心里留下一道伤疤。就像钉子把篱笆扎得千疮百孔一样。”父亲说。
-dwindle [ˈdwɪndl] v. 减少
以《物种起源》(The Origin of Species )震动世界的英国生物学家、生物进化论奠基人查尔斯·罗伯特·达尔文(Charles Robert Darwin，1809—1882)说过：“脾气暴躁是人类较为卑劣的天性之一，人要是发脾气就等于在人类进步的阶梯上倒退了一步。”