I started to see this sentence, and I searched in Baidu, and I got two statements: Thoreau and Rousseau.

after careful search, it was finally proved that Thoreau said it. The original text was:

The source was: /71177

During the search, I also see several other expressions:

soul grows more by subtraction than by addition.

The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction.

The soul grows by subtrac. Tion.

In addition, several English language websites were discovered in this process:

1 maxim /

2 maxim /

3 maxim /

4 dictionary /

5 dictionary? /

The following is a brief introduction of Thoreau, with information from Baidu Encyclopedia:

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), an American writer, philosopher, a representative of Transcendentalism, an abolitionist and naturalist, with or without anarchist tendencies, once worked as a land surveyor.

Graduated from Harvard University, he helped Emerson edit the quarterly review sundial. He wrote many political comments, opposed the war between the United States and Mexico, and supported the abolitionist movement all his life. He spoke everywhere to advocate abolitionism and attacked the fugitive slave law. Deeply influenced by Emerson, he advocated returning to his original heart and getting close to nature. In 1845, he lived in seclusion by Walden Lake, two miles from Concord, and lived a simple and natural life. The long essay Walden Lake (also translated as "Notes on the Lakeside") (1854) written on this theme became a classic work of transcendentalism. Thoreau was brilliant. He wrote more than 2 first-class essays in his life. He was called the founder of natural essays. His essays were concise, powerful, simple, natural and thoughtful, and he was unique in American prose in the 19th century.

Walden is recognized as the most popular nonfiction work in American literature.

Other works include political treatise On Civil Disobedience (also translated as Passive Resistance, Civil Disobedience, Civil Disobedience (1849), Life without Rules (1863), travel notes Natural History of Massachusetts, A Week by Concord and Merrimack, and The Forest of Maine.

Walden Lake records his secluded life in Walden Lake, while Civil Disobedience discusses the injustice faced by the government and powerful forces and defends citizens' voluntary refusal to obey some laws.

Note: transcendentalism's core view is that people can go beyond feeling and reason and directly know the truth, emphasizing the importance of intuition. It holds that everything in the human world is a microcosm of the universe-"the world shrinks itself into a drop of dew" (Emerson's words), which has faded with the birth of practical philosophy. Transcendentalists emphasize the essential unity of all things, all things are restricted by "oversoul", and the human soul is consistent with "oversoul". This affirmation of the sanctity of human beings makes transcendentalists despise external authority and tradition and rely on their own direct experience. Emerson's famous saying "believe in yourself" became the motto of transcendentalists. This transcendentalist view emphasizes people's subjective initiative, which helps to break the shackles of Calvinism's dogmas such as "evil human nature" and "final verdict of fate" and lays the ideological foundation for passionate and expressive romantic literature.