Gossip needn't be false to be evil — there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.

Clark distinguishes moral harm from factual accuracy: speech can be “evil” not because it lies, but because it violates discretion, charity, or privacy. The line targets the common defense of gossip—“but it’s true”—by arguing that truth is not an all-purpose license to repeat information. It implies an ethics of communication in which motives (titillation, status, malice), likely consequences (humiliation, damaged trust), and the hearer’s need-to-know matter as much as veracity. The aphorism also gestures toward a social ideal of restraint: some truths belong to confession, counsel, or intimate circles, not public circulation.