(You could call this contradiction, but it's just that on closer examination the difference has vanished. Both roads are good perhaps the one he didn't take is good too. So, then again (“Though as for that”), the difference is not such a big one, possibly even non-existent. Immediately after making this decision on such flimsy grounds though, he is aware that: Why? Simply because it appears “perhaps” better, after looking at its grass and feeling that it needs walking on. He's considered one road and then decided to take the other one, which (“as just as fair”) is very similar. Of course, being a single person he can't travel both (what a delightfully absurd idea!), so he's having to make up his mind.

In the very first line the author sets the context quickly: here he is, faced with two roads in a wood. In the context of the poem, though, it appears that the author may have intended (see questions on authorial-intent) something else (or something more), which becomes apparent if we read the poem closely, in its entirety and in order. (The rhyme, the repetition of the “I”, …) So those who wish to “borrow” the language of a poet to express this idea about themselves are certainly not doing anything “wrong”. Here we have a master poet who has cloaked this idea in creative language, and there are all sorts of subtle things that make the words memorable and charming.

To use language is to give expression to ideas language begins to turn into poetry when the ideas are striking, or the form is striking, or both. And why not? They express an idea that is almost heroic: of doing the unconventional thing, being a maverick rather a conformist, of the virtue of individualism that has always resonated in America, of the satisfaction (or regret!) that your choice ended up making a difference.

These lines, the last three lines of Frost's The Road Not Taken, have been endlessly quoted by many people: as epigraphs in their books, on their personal web pages, and so on. Quotes have a way of taking on a life of their own.

Theme in the road not taken