An operator T : X → Y between Banach spaces is said to be finitely strictly singular if for every ε > 0 there exists n such that every subspace E ⊆ X with dim E n contains a vector x such that T x < ε x . We show that, for 1 p < q < ∞, the formal inclusion operator from J p to J q is finitely strictly singular. As a consequence, we obtain that the strictly singular operator with no invariant subspaces constructed by C. Read is actually finitely strictly singular. These results are deduced from the following fact: if k n then every k-dimensional subspace of R n contains a vector x with x ∞ = 1 such that x m i = (−1) i for some m 1 < · · · < m k .