Education Quote by Little Milton

Little Milton’s line lands like the kind of hard-won wisdom you only say plainly because you’ve already lived the messy parts. Coming from a blues and soul musician who spent decades touring, navigating segregated venues, fickle labels, and the economics of being both artist and labor, “respect yourself” isn’t self-help wallpaper; it’s survival strategy. The phrasing matters: “I did learn” implies a before-and-after, a past self who maybe took less than he deserved - in money, in treatment, in dignity - and paid for it.

Calling self-respect “the greatest thing in the world” elevates it above fame, romance, even talent. That’s a quiet rebuke to the entertainment industry’s favorite bargain: trade your boundaries for access. In Milton’s context, self-respect is also racial and cultural insistence. For Black performers of his generation, respect wasn’t a given; it was something you asserted in small negotiations and big refusals, night after night.

Then he pivots: “Respect other people.” Not as a softer add-on, but as the only way self-respect avoids turning into ego. The subtext is communal: dignity isn’t a private possession; it’s a social practice. In blues, the “I” is rarely just autobiography - it’s a voice carrying a whole room’s bruises and lessons. Milton compresses an ethic into two short sentences: know your worth, and prove you know it by how you treat everyone else.