Life & Wisdom Quote by Agnes Repplier

Nothing punctures the romance of travel faster than hearing someone insist they are not like the other tourists. Repplier’s line skewers that performance with a single twist: the tourist’s disdain is real, but so is his dependence.

The intent is corrective, almost hygienic. She’s diagnosing a familiar self-deception: the modern traveler wants the benefits of infrastructure without the embarrassment of being part of the crowd that makes it viable. “Other tourists” become a convenient scapegoat for everything that feels inauthentic - noise, queues, souvenir shops, the flattening of place into itinerary. Complaining restores a sense of individuality. It lets you believe you’re a pilgrim, not a consumer.

The subtext is more biting. Tourists aren’t just annoying; they’re a social technology. They create the maps, the translations, the predictable routes, the safety in numbers, the tacit permission to be out of place. Without them, you’re not a discerning observer; you’re someone standing in a foreign square with no cues, no cover, no script. Repplier understands that “lost” is both literal and psychological: you lose orientation, but you also lose the comforting fiction that your experience is singular.

In context, Repplier is writing from the era when mass travel is becoming a recognizable type - the package tour, the guidebook, the standardized “sights.” Her wit lands because it anticipates a modern habit: treating tourism as a moral failing in others while practicing it enthusiastically ourselves. The joke doubles as a mirror, and that’s why it stings.