My whole existence has been devoted to science and to teaching, and these two intense passions have brought me very great joy.
The impression that science is over has occurred many times in various branches of human knowledge, often because of an explosion of discoveries made by a genius or a small group of men in such a short time that average minds could hardly follow and had the unconscious desire to take breath, to get used to the unexpected things that came to be revealed. Dazzled by these new truths, they could not see beyond. Sometimes an entire century did not suffice to produce this accommodation. La vie et l'oeuvre scientifique de Augustin Fresnel (1927)