Source: Necromancer (1962), Chapter 5 (p. 36)
“When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”
“Advised a young diplomat "to tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound his enemies."”
Attributed. E.g., Vol 24, Encyclopedia Britannica of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, page 721 https://books.google.com/books?id=_GlJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA721&lpg=PA721&dq=truth+wotton+confound+advice&source=bl&ots=-cGk3UDLLj&sig=ltOR1xtI9WFic1JWKiFmIZ8Yce0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVkZCsj-jRAhXCyFQKHTmsCkAQ6AEIODAG#v=onepage&q=truth%20wotton%20confound%20advice&f=false (9th Ed. 1894).
Compare Mark Twain who, in Following the Equator, said "When in doubt, tell the truth" (which is often mis-quoted as containing an additional clause providing "it will confound your enemies and astound your friends").
“Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LIX
Following the Equator (1897)
“One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.”
15 February 1788
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)
“The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”
Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
The Bomb and the Opportunity (March 1946)
“In a myriad of ways you tell one truth.”
"The Bell of the Shape," p. 35
The Shape (2000), Sequence: “Bells”
