Aphorisms on Dharma, can be well understood in 'Letter and Spirit' through their delineation in Smrithi, ithihasa Puranas .As an eg.
Manu-smṛti 4.138
सत्यं ब्रूयात्प्रियं ब्रूयान्न ब्रूयात्सत्यमप्रियम् ।
प्रियं च नानृतं ब्रूयादेष धर्मः सनातनः ॥
satyam brūyat_priyam brūyan_na brūyāt_satyam_apriyam ।
priyam cha nānṛitam brūyādéṣha dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ
One should speak truth, speak congenial, not speak unpleasant truth, Nor should one speak pleasant untruths, this is the eternal law (dharma).
Explanatory notes by Ganganath Jha
That only such truth should be told as is agreeable; it quotes the words of Vyāsa to the effect that ‘only such truth should be told as is beneficial to living beings.’
Yājñavalkya (1.132).-‘He shall never expose himself to danger; he shall not, without reason, say what is disagreeable, nor what is not beneficial or untrue; he shall not be a thief, nor an usurer.’(wisdomlib)
Lord Sri Krishna narrates the story of Sage Koushika to Arjuna.-Mahabharata,Karna Parva
अनृतं तु भवेद्वाच्यं न तु हिंसा कदाचन।।
Kaushika who had undertaken the vow always to tell the truth. One day a group of travelers fleeing a band of bandits passed by a crossroad where he was sitting. One of them pleaded with him not to tell the bandits which way they were going. But when the bandits showed up and asked, he told the truth, and the bandits found and slaughtered the travelers. Kaushika is said to have lost all of his accumulated merit for this one act of selfishness
Thus, in the conflict of universal dharmic precepts of truth-telling and noninjury, Kaushika misvalued telling the truth over saving innocent lives. What is most important to note, however, is that whenever there is a conflict between a universal dharma and a visesha dharma, the latter always prevails.
(story briefed in Mystism and Morality -Lexington books)