Indiscreet, someone who reveals something confided in them. A man who knows how to think, speak and predict what will result from his words is not indiscreet . By excess of confidence we open our hearts to someone indifferent; we spread out our soul before them; it is a weakness to which we are brought by inexperience and pain. Pain seeks a way to find relief; inexperience conceals the danger of our frankness. Unhappy people and children are almost all indiscreet . Indiscretion can be a crime. A gesture, a look, a word, even silence is indiscreet . Keep away from indiscreet people. Vetabo qui coeteris sacra , etc. [ sic ]. [1] Vanity causes indiscretion . But indiscretion does not only relate to trust; it extends to other objects too. An act of zeal can be called indiscreet ; or of an action we can say that it is indiscreet . Such indiscretion occurs whenever we fall short through giddiness or false judgement. A loving woman counts on the discretion of the man she prefers; it is an unspoken condition that must never be forgotten, not even with her friend. Would you confide in him a secret that does not belong to you alone? There are so many indiscreet lovers because there are so few honest men. After the indiscretion of happy lovers, the most common is the indiscretion of benefactors. Very few of them feel how sweet it is to be the only ones to know of a generous action that they have done. It may even be that the person who has been aided knows nothing at all about it. Why put your trust in a third person between heaven and yourself? For the honor of the human race I would like to think there are generous souls who have kept heroic actions to themselves all through their lives and have taken their secret with them to the grave.

Note

1. I forbid the man who divulged those secret rites of Ceres . Horace, Odes , Book III.