The mother of Mendeleev
"Solutions", the first chemistry book by Mendeleev (creator of The Periodic Table), have the next dedication witch I love:
THIS RESEARCH is dedicated to the memory of a mother by her youngest son. She educated him by her own means while running a factory. She instructed him by example, corrected him with love, and to make him dedicate himself to science she left Siberia with him, spending her last resources and strength. As she was dying, she told him: ‘Refrain from chimeras, insist on work and not on words, patiently seek scientific and divine truths.’ She understood that dialectical methods often deceive, how much there is still to learn and how, with the help of science without violence, with love but with firmness, all superstition, lies and errors are eliminated, because science brings with it the certainty of truths not yet discovered, freedom of future developments, general well-being and intimate happiness. Dmitri Mendeleev considers the words of his dying mother sacred.