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I remember that once upon a time I heard the expression "content is better than...", which means that real inside content is better than superficial outside appearance.
But I couldn't remember the "..." in "content is better than...".
Can you fill in the missing word?
'Content is better than riches' (Chinese proverb):
Source: China.com
The proverb is also seen written as: 'Contentment is better than riches', the first recorded citation being in 1566
Source: A Dictionary of American Proverbs. New York: OUP,1992
The saying may have originated from the Bible (New Testament):
'But godliness with contentment is great gain.' 1 Timothy 6:6, KJB
Google Books searches reveal various competing expressions that begin with "content is better than"—including ones that refer to each of the two main senses of content: "contentment" and "substance."
'Content' as contentment
By far the most common of these aphorisms is the one that Julie Carter identifies in her answer:
Content is better than riches [or wealth].
According to W. Gurney Benham, A Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words (1907), this sentiment is sometimes expressed more grandly as
The greatest wealth is contentment with a little.
James Moffat, A New Translation of the Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments (1954) contrasts content not with riches but with toil:
Still, one handful of content is better than two hands full of toil and futile effort.
And Thomas Holcroft, The Noble Peasant: A Comic Opera, in Three Acts (1784) has this, spoken by a character from whom homilies spout like water from a bubbling fountain:
Content is better than a down-bed, and the stars will be obeyed.
'Content' as substance
We also have this completely different expression (though its status as a proverb is iffy):
Content is better than form.
The earliest Google Books match for this last expression appears in Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Common Schools of Pennsylvania (1900). Google Books finds multiple instances of it over the next decade, but all of them are quoting the same commentary on the proper way to teach literature. Nevertheless it seems more relevant than the others to the OP's request for a saying that distinguishes between substance (content) and superficial appearance (here, form).
