...woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. — George William Curtis What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country! — /iw/j/r Addison Up, men, and to your posts! Don't forget today that you are from Old Virginia....

...student, Hale was known to be fond of Joseph Addison's 1713 play Cato. This play included the lines "What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country." Addison is a more likely source of this quote than Hale or Hull. Verdict: Credit Joseph Addison for...

...citizen's overwhelming obligations to the republic: How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country! . . . Portius, behold thy brother, and remember Thy life is not thy own, when Rome demands it. (4.4.80-87)...

...playwright Joseph Addison's successful 1713 play Cato: How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! Who would not be that youth? What pity is it That we can die but once to serve our countrv. A ninetheeth-century illustration depicting Hales execution. Fire Four days went by, and Howe...

...Hale could "regret that I have but one life to give for my country" because he had heard Cato observe, "what pity is it /That we can die but once to serve our country." During the winter of Valley Forge, to distract his men from their misery with an appeal to principle,...

...liberty or death"), and Nathan Hale's paraphrase: How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue! . . . what pity is it That we can die but once to serve our country. . . . Throughout the course of his writings, Paine would again and again take to heart Addison and...

...it at some point during his years at Yale or as a schoolmaster. The relevant line appears in act IV: "What pity is it, that we can die but once to serve our country." Now, had Hale uttered the words he is supposed to have uttered, he would have been paraphrasing Addison...