How do you deal with an overly hot tempered spouse?

I'm actually the hot tempered one in my marriage, but honestly, my wife has her moments. For me, I think it's all about patience. I always try to take the adage, "If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" as seriously as possible. I use that mentality to calm down and address the situation later with a cooler, calmer head. 9/10 times, that leads to me apologizing and us resolving any temper related issues.