"They came for condiments, not for corn." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  I was reading some of Emerson's essays today and this line struck me:  "They came for condiments, not for corn." People, in general, look to the shallows, few want to discover what lies beneath the surface: few care to search the souls of others, but rather, like this quote implies, they prefer to pick through the condiments and disregard the corn; or, to put it another way, they relish the gravy but not the meat. This has so many applications; certainly it's true in the romantic arena; and equally, in the spiritual: where they will listen to you if they hear some clever or novel thought, but as soon as they determine you no longer entertain them, or affirm, or concern them, they leave.