From her remarkable memoirs, the German-Jewish Gluckel of Hameln, writing about her childhood village of Altona sometime in the 17th century:
But great love and a close community spirit reigned among them, and in general they all enjoyed a better life than the richest man today. If a man were worth only 500 Reichsthalers, he could well be satisfied; and everyone was happier with whatever he had than nowadays when even the rich can never get enough.
The notion of the “good old days” surely comes for us all.