Willard Scott Quotes

Most people understand life expectancy has changed since Social Security started in 1937 when folks lived to be 59 years old. Today, they live to be 77 years old.

Seventy is old enough. After that there is too much risk.

New research shows that you will be dead longer than you will be alive.

The life expectancy is much longer today than it was when Social Security was created.

One could look over the past century and ask oneself, has the increased longevity been good, bad or indifferent?

I was told when I went for a life-insurance exam when I was 18 that I was not likely to live past 50, so I refused to pay the premium.

I think one of the important things that's happened in the course of the century is that life expectancy has doubled.

My dad was in the life insurance business, so I learned about selling when I was about 14 because I started working as a secretary.

When the social security age was first established as 65, most people didn't live to be that old.

The changes taking place in the age structure of the countries around the world are stunning.

All of us can expect to live longer than any organization that we would work for. That continues apace. Human longevity is increasing; corporate longevity is decreasing.

When I was young, I used to think that everyone should die at 70.

People die at 100 years old now. When I was a kid, people died at 67.

In ten years time I’ll be… (dead) sixty.

The world's oldest woman passed away at 116. They keep dying. I think that title may be cursed.

For if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest.

One of the things that got me on this topic for this book was that when I was researching the column I wrote in 2009 saying that I was stepping down from my column at "Newsweek" because I wanted to make room for newer, fresh voices out there, I discovered that in the year I was born, 1952, the average life expectancy of an American was 68. I was shocked by that figure and every time I mention it I hear a gasp from somebody in the crowd. Now, of course, we're more or less at 80, so that means that we've gotten 12 additional years.

Man's natural life span, 75 to 90 years or so, has not increased. It is the number of us who manage to attain it that has increased.

With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation.

So aging is really just the way we deteriorate over time. Lifespan on the other hand is how long we live. We typically refer to that as longevity.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.

It is a bad idea to live too long. Few carry it off well.

As you get older the odds are against you that you are still going to be on the planet.

I'll shoot my age if I have to live to be 105.

I think the best thing that could happen is that I'll live to be a lot older than my mother lived.