I'm not sure if it's due to having come across this quote long ago, but this idea is ingrained in my bones.
Except I think people have often overly focused on "lines of code" as the unit for this metric, leading many to overrate terse code, even when it is very dense.
But I'm not sure what wording would capture this idea succinctly enough to include it in a pithy quote.
It's funny that you used Go as an example. Like 60% of its raison d'être is noticing that more lines of code is often better if each line is simple. And I think it's mostly right about that. Its inscrutable naming conventions are, on the other hand, a poor choice. (Notwithstanding that java's are a poor choice in the opposite direction.)
Except I think people have often overly focused on "lines of code" as the unit for this metric, leading many to overrate terse code, even when it is very dense.
But I'm not sure what wording would capture this idea succinctly enough to include it in a pithy quote.