textfield with #disabled = true, #input = false
Use a markup element instead.

$form['element'] = array(
    '#type' =&gt; 'markup',
    '#markup' =&gt; 'This is the thing you want people to see. You can use &lt;strong&gt;html&lt;/strong&gt;, too.',
);


You don't actually have to specify #type =&gt; 'markup' because drupal defaults to that type if you don't specify, but I do anyway as it seems to be good practice.