“If there was one truth Evie had learned in her short life, it was that forgiveness was easier to seek than permission. She didn’t plan to ask for either one.”

— Libba Bray , book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Libba Bray 254

American teen writer 1964

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Lion's Heat

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

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

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/

“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)

“Evie didn’t mind yelling, but she hated feeling judged. It got under her skin and made her feel small and ugly and unfixable.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

“Had she only realized that it is only hypocrites who cannot forgive hypocrisy, whereas those who search for truth are too conscious of the maze to be hard on others – than the bitter flow of her thoughts might have been stopped and the catastrophe averted. But it was not conceivable to her that he should forgive – or that she should accept forgiveness, for to her forgiveness meant a triumph of one person over another.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Albergo Empedocle
The Life to Come and other stories (1972)

“It didn’t matter, anyway. There was only one thing she could ask for, in the end, only one real choice.
She raised her eyes to the Angel’s.
"Jace," she said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Life Plan:
I asked her what she planned to do with her life & she said she was way beyond that point already. I'm just happy I remember to be there when it happens, she said.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“I started my Love Class as a result of the suicide of one of my most talented students. She showed no sign of her despair. Then one day she took her life. I had to ask, "What's the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?"”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

So I started my Love Class. I taught it free of salary and tuition just so students could have a forum to consider the truly essential things. I really didn't "teach" the class. I facilitated it — helping the students to discover their own magic.
A Magazine of People and Possibilities interview (1998)

“As she stumbled forward she cried out in her mind, which was as dark, as shaken as the subterranean vault, “Forgive me. O my Masters, O unnamed ones, most ancient ones, forgive me, forgive me!”
There was no answer. There had never been an answer.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Tombs of Atuan (1971), Chapter 10, "The Anger of the Dark"

“Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Source: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

“If there was one truth Evie had learned in her short life, it was that forgiveness was easier to seek than permission. She didn’t plan to ask for either one.”

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Libba Bray 254

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