BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Humility, active listening, and serving others are essential components of a thriving democracy, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday during a lecture at Bentonville’s Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

“The American spirit means to me that we don’t wait on our government to deliver for us, that we deliver for one another,” Rice said. “I think the highest form of democracy is actually individual citizens delivering for individual citizens.”

Rice’s appearance was part of the museum’s Building Bridges lecture series, moderated by Crystal Bridges board chair Olivia Walton. The series highlights civic dialogue and has previously featured prominent figures including President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and filmmaker Ken Burns.

Reflecting on significant moments from her career, Rice recounted her time on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. She noted Bush’s decision not to go to Germany to mark the occasion, describing it as a “German moment, not an American one.” That approach, she said, taught her about humility and grace in leadership. German Chancellor Angela Merkel later credited Bush with enabling Germany’s reunification, a sentiment she shared at his 2018 funeral.

Rice, who served as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2009, emphasized the importance of listening in diplomacy. “If you speak first, you can shut that room down in no time,” she said. “It’s a really important thing to practice in diplomacy. It’s also kind of an important thing to practice in life.”

During her tenure as national security advisor, Rice played a central role in the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks. She said the unity Americans displayed in the aftermath demonstrated “what the soul of America could be.” However, she noted that the country’s divisions have deepened in the years since, which she partly attributed to social media allowing people to isolate themselves in echo chambers of like-minded opinions.

“We’ve stopped listening to each other, we’ve stopped talking across differences,” Rice observed.

As a long-serving professor of political science at Stanford University, Rice said her students give her hope for the future of American democracy. Calling them “the most public-minded generation” she’s ever taught, she expressed optimism about their potential to lead civic engagement in the years ahead.

For those looking to make a difference, Rice encouraged small, personal acts of kindness. “Do just one thing for somebody else,” she urged. “You’ll never feel aggrieved, and you’ll never feel entitled. Democracy’s best when its citizens are neither aggrieved nor entitled.”