Do you know what this chinese proverb means?

Question

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.

Answer 1

Picture has value. But here it is used for obtaining ashes.Ash can be obtained by burning anything which has no value. Like that to satisfy our ambition we do immoral or embarassing things.This cause us to destroy our value.

Answer 2

The one thing you cannot take away from a man is integrity, or conscience. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." When a man sacrifices his integrity, for anything, even worldly ambition, he has nothing,because position can be taken away, it can vanish overnight . No one can ever take away your integrity. You can only give it away. So if, you give away your integrity for ambition, you are left with nothing. You can burn a beautiful picture for the ashes, but the ashes can be blown away. You can't hold on to ashes. Ashes are worthless. Position is worthless. Integrity is priceless.

Answer 3

You basically waste something more precious than what you gain.

The picture has value, ash doesn't, you can obtain ash from anything by burning it.

So, if you sell your conscience for an ambition, then you are getting less value back than it is worth.