A budget interwoven with wise sayings

Of late, the Tamil Nadu Budget has been peppered with apt quotations and wise sayings that resonate with the socio-political and economic principles of the DMK government.

The Interim Budget presented by Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) featured couplets from the Tirukkural, verses from Sangam poetry, quotations from B.R. Ambedkar, and lines from Kahlil Gibran.

Read the full Budget speech here.

Beginning with the Tirukkural couplet, “To share one’s meal with others, and all life to save, is chief of all the lore that learned sages gave,” the Minister also recalled Ambedkar’s words: “Democracy is not merely a form of government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellow men.”

To underline the government’s commitment to protecting the environment, he quoted Kahlil Gibran’s lines:

“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky;

We fell them down and turn them into paper,

That we may record our emptiness.”

The Budget speech also echoed the Dravidian movement’s motto that all men are created equal. Mr. Thennarasu recalled Abraham Lincoln’s words: “All men are created equal is the greatest fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.”