Keeping Other’s Secrets

The Flowers Of Guidance Volume One Wisdom and Goodness
Those who gossip will lose all respect and become worthless and loathsome in the eyes of wise listeners. Sooner or later, the person subject to the gossips will also find out and will see the gossiper as a despicable character.

Moreover, every individual is responsible for keeping the secrets of others. The criterion is a personal experiment: How devastated will you become when you entrust someone with a secret, and that person reveals the secret and makes it widespread? Such devastation happens to other people as well. So, if someone tells you a secret directly or someone else brought the secret to you through one or two intermediaries, you are to keep that secret and avoid spreading and retelling it to others. If someone tells you something which requires keeping and protection, refrain from telling others. Furthermore, if you presume the individual will be upset or hurt by his secret, it is upon your conscience and obligation to keep it.