宁为玉碎，不为瓦全

宁为玉碎，不为瓦全

Literally means:

rather be a piece of jade than a whole tile

Actually means:

better die in pride than live in disgrace

玉, jade. It figuratively refers to noble quality. 瓦 utensils made of clay, like pottery. It figuratively refers to anything of low quality.

The two 为 are used as verbs, meaning acting as. They are not used as prepositions, which are pronounced as 为 (fourth tone). This phrase means one would rather be like jade, even broken still considered as treasure, than be clay pottery, even unhurt but still low in quality.

It figuratively means one would rather die in pride than live without dignity. This phrase can be contracted to the short form of 宁玉碎, 不瓦全. It embodies the Chinese choice of life value.

玉，宝石，比喻高贵的品质。瓦，泥土烧制的东西(如瓦罐)，比喻低劣的品质。

两个“为”都是动词，表示“充当”，而不是介词“为 (读wei4) ”，宁可像玉一样，破碎了也还是宝物，不能像瓦一样，即时侥幸保全了也是微贱的东西。

比喻宁可作为品格高尚的人而死去，也不作"宁玉碎，不瓦全”。反映了中国人对人生价值的选择。