The name philosopher, which meant originally “lover of wisdom,” has come in some strange way to mean a man who thinks it is his business to explain everything in a certain number of large books. It will be found, I think, that in proportion to his colossal ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system which he sets up; because it is so much easier to put an empty room tidy than a full one.

William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) English mathematician and philosopher

Quoted in A. D’Abro, The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein, Part 4, ch. 37 (1927)
    (Source)

D'Abro says it comes from one of Clifford's essays, but the source does not appear online.