I am the master of my fate

This is a classic poem. It was lately used as the title of the movie Invictus as it is reportedly the poem that kept Nelson Mandela strong whilst he was imprisoned in South Africa. I first heard it in, and thus associate it with, the film The Dead Poets Society. The second half of each stanza is bolded because those are the parts I like best.

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.