“Humankind too often cooks up an excuse to start war instead of making peace. Rather than developing better strategies to win wars, we should focus on better recipes to attain peace.”

A paraphrased variant of this seems to have arisen on the internet around 2007: It is ... a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.
1810s
Source: Message delivered to Dey Omar Agha, by Isaac Chauncey and William Shaler , summarizing the Treaty with Algiers (1815) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/bar1815t.asp, and U.S attitudes and actions in the Barbary Wars, in refusing to pay ransom or tribute to pirates of the Barbary States, as quoted in History and Present Condition of Tripoli: With Some Accounts of the Other Barbary States http://books.google.com/books?id=YMwRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 (1835) by Robert Greenhow, p. 46

Cardinal Martinez reiterates Pope’s call for peace https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal_martinez_reiterates_popes_call_for_peace (August 9, 2006)

Vorkosigan Saga, The Vor Game (1990)

Adagia (1508)

Quoted in "The American review on the Soviet Union" - Page 10 - by American Russian Institute - 1938

A remark to his private secretary, Lord Sandon, in May 1919. From Terence H. O'Brien, Milner, Viscount Milner of St James and Cape Town 1954-1925, 1979, Constable, p. 335.

Speech at the national convention of the American Legion, in Nashville, Tennessee (August 31, 2004) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5865710/
2000s, 2004

"Bigotry That Hurts Our Military" in The Washington Post (14 May 2007) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301507.html.
Context: As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review — and overturn — the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for "don't ask, don't tell." But much has changed since 1993.
My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign language deficit" and how much our government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers. Is there a "straight" way to translate Arabic? Is there a "gay" Farsi? My God, we'd better start talking sense before it is too late. We need every able-bodied, smart patriot to help us win this war.

Il est plus facile de faire la guerre que la paix.
"Discours de Paix" [Speech on Peace] Verdun (20 July 1919)
Prime Minister