On being neither finisher nor bystander
“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
Two releases, and they pull opposite ways. The first takes away the demand that anything be completed in your lifetime — the injustice ended, the field cleared, the argument won.
The second removes the exit that the first seems to open. Not required to finish is not the same as free to stop, and the sentence refuses to let those two become one. What is left is a share of the work, which is a smaller and more livable thing than either.