“It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

— Grace Hopper

As quoted in the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine (July 1986)
As quoted in Built to Learn: The Inside Story of How Rockwell Collins Became a True Learning Organization (2003) by Cliff Purington, Chris Butler, and Sarah Fister Gale, p. 171
The future: Hardware, Software, and People in Carver https://books.google.com/books?id=5Q7uAAAAMAAJ, 1983
Actually attested since mid-19th century.
Variant: If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Variant: That brings me to the most important piece of advice that I can give to all of you: if you've got a good idea, and it's a contribution, I want you to go ahead and DO IT. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/

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Grace Hopper 22

American computer scientist and United States Navy officer 1906–1992

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Lion's Heat

“It is always easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

This seems to be derived from a statement attributed to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, and which she regularly used in her public addresses: "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."
Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)