Three may keep counsel, if two be away.
Meaning: Secrets survive only when fewer mouths know them; a third person inevitably spreads what two shared.
Origin: This is the older and gentler English form: three people can keep a secret only if two of them are absent. Benjamin Franklin, who liked to sharpen proverbs he found in earlier collections, darkened it in Poor Richard's Almanack (1735): "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
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