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"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." - Grace Hopper

I find it unlikely the first person to express that concept was born in the 20th century.

Some places say Henry Ward Beecher (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe). If I had to guess, though, it's hundreds or thousands of years old.

It's attributed to Hopper. If you can find it anywhere before July 1986 we can change the wikiquote page.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper

Disney used it in a slightly modified form: "Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."

> “It is easier to get forgiveness than permission” appears earlier in Arthur Bloch, Murphy’s Law Book Two (1980)

http://freakonomics.com/2010/06/24/quotes-uncovered-forgiven...

That's the thing. There's no particular flourish that makes her version remarkable. It's just a sentence.

Except she said it first, and versions of it have appeared since she said it, but not before she said it.

Telling me that it's just a sentence isn't persuasive in any way. Showing me something mostly similar from before 1986 would do a lot more to persuade me.

Nor is telling me "it's attributed to Grace Hopper." It's a special kind of hell to google something for 20 minutes, return, and have someone throw you a Wikipedia link.

Oh, you don't know who the Beechers are. They're from the 1800s.

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