"I regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
Those were the words of Captain Nathan Hale, a 21-year-old American spy, spoken on September 22, 1776, just before the British hanged him in New York City for espionage during the Revolutionary War.
He’d been caught with incriminating sketches of British fortifications hidden in his shoes after volunteering for an impossibly dangerous intelligence mission behind enemy lines. Faced with the gallows and offered a chance to recant, he chose defiance instead.
The line itself is a slight paraphrase (recorded second-hand by eyewitnesses), but it’s become one of the most enduring statements of patriotic sacrifice in American history. Hale had reportedly been inspired by a similar sentiment in Joseph Addison’s play *Cato* (“What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country!”), which was popular among the revolutionaries, Washington included.
Two and a half centuries later, it still hits hard, because it’s not bravado. It’s the quiet, terrible recognition that some causes demand everything, and some people quietly decide they’re willing to pay it.
Thank you for quoting him. His one life bought something that still matters.