Leonard E. Read

Leonard E. Read was the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education — the first modern libertarian think tank in the United States — and was largely responsible for the revival of the liberal tradition in post–World War II America.

Articles

I am a lead pencil — the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do. You may wonder why I...

Publications

Leonard E. Read
Vision is the blessing of foresight, but it has no chance of realization without its companion blessing, insight. In the absence of these twin attainments—each within our reach—the people perish, that is, they vegetate rather than germinate, stagnate
Leonard E. Read
Written in 1951, this is one of Leonard Read’s earliest pamphlets on what he called “the philosophy of freedom.” As was often the case in Read’s essays on spreading the message of liberty, he notes that the first step is evaluating one’s own thinking
Leonard E. Read
The love of liberty and the love of knowledge go hand-in-hand. As people can be free only when self-responsible and self-responsible only when free, so there can be no liberty without knowledge and no knowledge without liberty. These virtues are but

Media

Leonard E. Read
Think of it! The finest orchestrations ever known to man, the most beautiful music any individual on earth has heard — all mine, and done for me privately when I want it, and where I want it, and for no more than the flick of a switch. Staggering