Fence Nails

There once 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 back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence.

Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger the number of nails hammered daily 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. He said, “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. Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us.

QuotaBills
Hope is a very unruly emotion. - Gloria Steinem

I need physics more than friends. - J Robert Oppenheimer

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds. - Socrates

Success covers a multitude of blunders. - George Bernard Shaw

Failure is success if we learn from it. - Malcolm Forbes

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. - Christopher Lasch

Spying between friends - that's just not done. - Angela Merkel

All my friends don't recognize me without a limp. - Kim Stewart

If you don't have enemies, you don't have character. - Paul Newman

A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever. - Martin F Tupper

The success that the Tolkien books had redefined modern fantasy. - George R.R. Martin

The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. - Albert Einstein

People with goals succeed because they know where they're going. - Earl Nightingale

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction. - Al Bernstein

The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it. - Nicholas Sparks

I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones. - Oscar Wilde

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's. - Jean Paul Richter

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The secret of success is to go from mistake to mistake without losing your enthusiasm. - Unknown

Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence. - Elias Canetti

When the need to succeed is as bad as the need to breathe, then you'll be successful. - Eric Thomas

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. - Benjamin Disraeli

A word of encouragement during failure is worth more than a dictionary of praise following success. - Unknown

We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends. - Cosimo de Medici

Its success lies in the fact that it's an insurance plan, not an investment plan or a welfare plan. - James Roosevelt

You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself. - William Boetcker

To succeed, you have to do something and be very bad at it for a while. You have to look bad before you can look really good. - Barbara DeAngelis

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway. - Toni Morrison

Living as we do in an age of noise and bluster, success is now measured accordingly. We must all be seen, and heard, and on the air. - Daphne du Maurier

The barrier between success is not something which exists in the real world: it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability. - Franklin D Roosevelt

My candle burns at both ends,
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light! - Edna St Vincent Millay

She's so fat she's my two best friends. She wears stretch caftans. She's got more chins than the Chinese telephone directory. - Joan Rivers

Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success. - Diana Rankin

Every man, as to character, is the creature of the age in which he lives. Very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their times. - Voltaire

History has repeatedly been changed by people who had the desire and the ability to transfer their convictions and emotions to their listeners. - Dale Carnegie

If you go out looking for friends, you're going to find they are very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you'll find them everywhere. - Zig Ziglar

Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. - Pele

You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity. - Epicurus

Forgiveness is the best form of love in any relationship. It takes a strong person to say they're sorry, and an even stronger person to forgive. - Yolanda Hadid

see also Relationship Section
Achieving More At Work
Always Give 100% At Work
Employee’s Raisin Pay Bonus Program
George Costanza’s Tips For Working Hard
Jeopardy Measuring Cup
Rabbit Boost
So You Want A Day Off
Wise Electricity Use
World Peas

Fence Nails

Success through verbal and physical wounds

26-Jan-2021