The goal of all inanimate objects is to resist man and ultimately to defeat him

So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can't even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom!

I'm destined to be attracted to those I cannot defeat.

Defeat doesn't finish a man - quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.

Man is not made for defeat

Gerald Boyd was a classic specimen of the self-made man. Born poor, he worked and studied his way up out of poverty under the guidance of his widowed grandmother.