Proverbs 15:22 NIV

Plans fail for lack of counsel,

    but with many advisers they succeed.

Job 32:8-9 ESV

But it is the spirit in man,

    the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.

It is not the old who are wise,

    nor the aged who understand what is right.

Proverbs 2:3-5 NKJV

Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord , And find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 2:10-11 NKJV

When wisdom enters your heart, And knowledge is pleasant to your soul, Discretion will preserve you; Understanding will keep you,

The demons generally produce in us the opposite of what has just been said. For when they take possession of the soul and extinguish the light of the mind, then there is no longer in us poor wretches either sobriety, or discernment, or self-knowledge or shame; but there is indifference, lack of perception, want of discernment and blindness. 

What has just been said is known very vividly by those who have subdued their lust in order to become chaste, who have curbed their freedom of speech and have changed from shamelessness to modesty. They know how after the sobering of the mind, after the ending of its blindness, or rather its maiming, they are inwardly ashamed of themselves for what they said and did before when they were living in blindness.

—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

You might look at someone and judge them – maybe they’re living a sinful life, maybe they’re struggling with a sin that brings more shame than others – and you’re judging them without discernment knowing that if you lived a day in this person’s life, you would never be able to fight the sin that they’re fighting with daily.

—Fr. Paul Girguis

Offer to those who visit you what is necessary both for the body and for the spirit. If they are wiser than we are, let us show our philosophy by silence. And if they are brethren following the same way of life, let us open the door of speech to them in due measure. Yet it is better to regard all as superior to us.

—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

Do not say: ‘I do not know what is right, therefore I am not to blame when I fail to do it.’ For if you did all the good about which you do know, what you should do next would then become clear to you, as if you were passing through a house from one room to another. It is not helpful to know what comes later before you have done what comes first. For knowledge without action ‘puffs up’, but ‘love edifies’, because it ‘patiently accepts all things’ (1 Cor. 8:1; 13:7). 

—St. Mark the Ascetic

The Fathers forbid us to give advice to our neighbor on our own accord, without our neighbor’s asking us to do so. The voluntary giving of advice is a sign that we regard ourselves as possessed of spiritual knowledge and worth, which is a clear sign of pride and self-deception.

—Bishop Ignatios, The Arena: An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism