From Montaigne's Humanity:
We flatter ourselves that we live in unprecedentedly hazardous, conflict-ridden, and changing times: but probably we have always lived in such times, and the memory of a safe, peaceful, and stable period is a trick of memory or the result of a defective grasp of history. Certainly, Montaigne could reasonably claim that he lived through the most momentous changes and the most perilous times. The dangers of his epoch were incomparably greater and nearer to the individual than those most of us like to frighten ourselves with today.