A true friend will keep a secret.
—Proverbs 11:13
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Don’t count on it.
When confidential information is shared with you, is it safe? Do you leak it—even with the stipulation, “I’m going to tell you something, but you must promise not to tell a soul”?
The physicians’ Hippocratic Oath includes this line: “Whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession . . . if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.”
That’s worthy of being personalized, framed, and hung on your wall. As are these words from Proverbs: “A gossip tells everything, but a true friend will keep a secret” (11:13). “A gossip can never keep a secret. Stay away from people who talk too much” (20:19).
What you do and say reveals a lot about you.
So does what you don’t do and say.