Chinese idiom · 成语
玉石俱焚
Meaning
Jade and stone burn together; good and bad, or innocent and guilty, perish alike.
Character by character
Origin and story
Classical literary expressionThe received Book of Documents contains this image in Yin Zheng. The chapter is framed as a military address before a campaign against Xi and He, officials accused of neglecting their duties. It warns that when fire sweeps a jade-bearing mountain, precious jade and ordinary stone burn together, then compares an official's loss of moral restraint to something even fiercer than that fire.
Yin Zheng belongs to the later-transmitted 'Old Text' chapters; its setting should not be mistaken for a securely contemporary record of the Xia dynasty. The enduring metaphor is indiscriminate destruction: the valuable and the worthless, or the innocent and the guilty, are caught in the same disaster.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
为了惩罚少数作弊的人就取消整个项目，只怕会让大家玉石俱焚。
Canceling the entire project to punish a few cheaters could bring everyone down, innocent and guilty alike.
Emphasizes indiscriminate harm to good and bad alike, not just a large loss.