„All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.“

1930s, Address at San Diego Exposition (1935)
Kontext: This country seeks no conquest. We have no imperial designs. From day to day and year to year, we are establishing a more perfect assurance of peace with our neighbors. We rejoice especially in the prosperity, the stability and the independence of all of the American Republics. We not only earnestly desire peace, but we are moved by a stern determination to avoid those perils that will endanger our peace with the world.

Desire, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

IV.69.18
Variant translation: Only a few prefer liberty, the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.
Histories

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Kontext: Killing an enemy in a modern war is a very expensive operation... It is obvious that modern war is not good business from a financial point of view. Although we won both the world wars, we should now be much richer if they had not occured. If men were actuated by self-interest, which they are not – except in the case of a few saints – the whole human race would cooperate. There would be no more wars, no more armies, no more navies, no more atom bombs. There would not be armies of propagandists employed in poisoning the minds of Nation A against Nation B, and reciprocally of Nation B against Nation A. There would not be armies of officials at frontiers to prevent the entry of foreign books and foreign ideas, however excellent in themselves. There would not be customs barriers to ensure the existence of many small enterprises where one big enterprise would be more economic. All this would happen very quickly if men desired their own happiness as ardently as they desired the misery of their neighbors. But, you will tell me, what is the use of these utopian dreams? Moralists will see to it that we do not become wholly selfish, and until we do the millennium will be impossible.

"The Struggle for Human Rights and Human Freedom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW33AxBe06o (June 2013)
2010s, 2013

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Kontext: I understand why war is not popular, but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That's why NATO continues to be indispensable. That's why we must strengthen U. N. and regional peacekeeping, and not leave the task to a few countries.

Young Adventure (1918), The Lover in Hell
Kontext: She is all peace, all quiet,
All passionate desires, the eloquent thunder
Of new, glad suns, shouting aloud for joy,
Over fresh worlds and clean, trampling the air
Like stooping hawks, to the long wind of horns,
Flung from the bastions of Eternity...
And she is the low lake, drowsy and gentle,
And good words spoken from the tongues of friends,
And calmness in the evening, and deep thoughts,
Falling like dreams from the stars' solemn mouths.
All these.

The Art of Peace (1992)

Address at the Universal Forum of Cultures, Barcelona (2004)]
2000s

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Quelle: The Sword of Shannara

Poor Richard's Almanack (1736), http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/frapos/index.html November
Poor Richard's Almanack

"I'm starting to think we have a problematic issue of personal philosophy here."
Jordan Kyle and Jace Herondale, pg. 27-29
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Quelle: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.8
Kontext: Those who desire to be men in truth, and not brutes, having only the appearance and shape of men, must constantly endeavor to reduce the wants of the body, such as eating, love, drinking, anger, and all manners originating in lust and passion; they must feel ashamed of them and set limits to them for themselves.

Fifth annual Message http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washs05.asp (3 December 1793)
1790s
Quelle: The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799 Volume 39 (General Index O-Z List of Letters) - Leather Bound

Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1916-12-19/debates/8572103d-700a-487a-8dd1-c0a99679cc6d/PrimeMinisterSStatement in the House of Commons (19 December 1916)
Later life

1963, American University speech
Kontext: I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

Quelle: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 129-130