There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at its root.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Related:
In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life uch are the clouds
and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for,
that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and
not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great
calculator indeed who succeeds....