The complete sentence is:
In a third class lever, the distance from the effort to the fulcrum is SMALLER the distance from the load/resistance to the fulcrum.
In fact, in a third class lever, the fulcrum is on one side of the effort and the load/resistance is on the other side, so the effort is located somewhere between the two of them. This means that the distance effort-fulcrum is smaller than the distance load-fulcrum.