First Essential Step

The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents.  But it is vital to remember that information -- in the sense of raw data -- is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight.  But information is the first essential step to all of these.

-- Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (1917 – 2008), British author, inventor, and futurist, as quoted in "Humanity will survive information deluge -- Sir Arthur C Clarke" in OneWorld South Asia (5 December 2003)