هرکه طمع کرد، اندوخته

What it means

هرکه طمع کرد، اندوخته (har keh tama’ kard, andukhte) is a Persian proverb on greed. هرکه (har keh) is “whoever,” طمع (tama’, from Arabic) is greed or covetousness, کرد (kard) is the past tense of “to do,” and اندوخته (andukhte) is the past participle of اندوختن (anduzkhtan), to save or store. The full proverb in its expanded forms reads هرکه طمع کرد، نیندوخت (whoever was greedy, did not store) or هرکه طمع کرد، خسارت دید (whoever was greedy, suffered loss).

The literal meaning

The literal sense compresses to: “whoever practiced greed, what was stored away.” The grammar is elliptical, with the verb of the second clause hanging in the air. The implied completion is: “whoever practiced greed, what was stored away was lost.” The image is of a person reaching for more, and in the reaching, dropping what they already had. Iranian agricultural and merchant culture knew this pattern intimately: the trader who grasps for an extra deal and loses the original profit, the farmer who plants beyond his capacity and watches half the harvest rot, the lender who charges so much interest that the borrower defaults and the principal evaporates.

The figurative meaning

Greed is self-defeating. The person who grabs for more loses what they had. The proverb is older than capitalism but maps onto modern life: investors chasing one more trade and blowing the account, employees grabbing for promotions and burning bridges, family members fighting over inheritance and ending up with neither the money nor the family. The proverb names the trap. Iranians use it to warn someone before a decision and to comfort or scold someone after the loss has happened.

Persian moral literature returns to this theme constantly. Sa’di’s Golestan and Bustan are full of stories where a greedy character meets exactly the loss the proverb predicts: the merchant who refuses to sell at a fair price and loses his cargo to a storm, the king who taxes one rial too many and loses the kingdom. The opposite virtue, قناعت (qanâ’at, contentment with what one has), is celebrated in equal measure. The two ideas form a pair: قناعت توانگرت سازد (qanâ’at tavângarat sâzad), Sa’di’s line, “contentment will make you rich,” sits exactly opposite the trap of طمع.

How to use it

• طمع نکن، هرکه طمع کرد چیزی نمونده براش (tama’ nakon, har keh tama’ kard chizi namunde barâsh) “Don’t be greedy, those who get greedy end with nothing”
• طمع کاره دستش، هرکه طمع کرد اندوخته (tama’ kâr-e dastesh, har keh tama’ kard andukhte) “Greed is his trade, and greed empties the storehouse”
• طمع کار خرابه (tama’ kâr kharâb-e) “Greed ruins everything”
• قناعت بهتر از طمعه (qanâ’at behtar az tama’-e) “Contentment is better than greed”

Related expressions

طمع‌کار (tama’-kâr) is a greedy person. آز (âz, pure Persian) is greed in the older, more poetic register, often paired with نیاز (niyâz, need) in classical poetry, especially in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. قناعت (qanâ’at) is the opposite virtue: contentment with what one has, a major theme in Iranian moral teaching from Sa’di to Hafez. حرص (hers) is craving, close in meaning to طمع but more about appetite than calculation. زیاده‌خواهی (ziyâde-khâhi) is wanting more than your share, the modern term often used in journalism and political commentary.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab