If you can't say anything nice...

"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Now there's a good piece of old-fashioned wisdom that seems relevant for for our virtue of the month: silence. I wonder about the origins of this quote and suspect they were initially tied to something in some Holy Writings, though I can't seem to find the original source.

In the Bahái Faith, similar advice is given to refrain from backbiting (speaking ill of someone behind his/her back).
In The Hidden Words, Bahá'u'lláh writes,
"O Son of Man!
Breate not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner. Shouldst thou transgress this command, accursed wouldst thou be, and to this I bear witness."

Bahá'u'lláh has called his followers to “regard backbiting as grievous error, and keep … aloof from its dominion, inasmuch as backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and extinguisheth the life of the soul.”

His son, Abdu'l-Bahá, stressed the spiritual impact of backbiting, saying:

“O beloved of the Lord! If any soul speak ill of an absent one, the only result will clearly be this: he will dampen the zeal of the friends and tend to make them indifferent. For backbiting is divisive, it is the leading cause among the friends of a disposition to withdraw. If any individual should speak ill of one who is absent, it is incumbent on his hearers, in a spiritual and friendly manner, to stop him, and say in effect: would this detraction serve any useful purpose? . . . On the contrary, it would make the dust to settle so thickly on the heart that the ears would hear no more, and the eyes would no longer behold the light of truth.”

Much better is it to praise the qualities of others: “If, however, a person setteth about speaking well of another, opening his lips to praise another, he will touch an answering chord in his hearers and they will be stirred up by the breathings of God.” -Abdu'l-Bahá

But if we can't do that, better to say nothing at all.