"subtle thought" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to a thought that is not obvious or easy to comprehend. For example: "He looked deep in thought, as if pondering some subtle thought."
Maybe it was my joggled brain, but I was no longer capable of subtle thought.
But the addiction model of celebrity comes with its own baggage, especially in a patient population prone to the subtle thought distortions of a brain under the influence.
George Washington's famous admonition to "avoid foreign entanglements" is one of history's most notorious false quotations — a three-word compression of a more subtle thought about avoiding Europe's squabbles.
Mr. Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, never tried to defend the literal meaning of his words; apparently he meant either to express a more subtle thought or merely to voice a common campaign point about how judges sometimes overreach.
Expressing much while often saying little, Jones proves once again to be a mesmerising screen presence, a performer behind whose face you can see the most complex and subtle thought processes at work.
All of the linguistic instruments…of subtle thought are dropped…and abstract terms are taken back to the concrete.… The copious employment of symbols…for representing certain objects and processes is in harmony (with) the regression of the mental apparatus and the demands of censorship.
Stein's style makes subtle thoughts sound flat and straightforward, and it also lets straightforward, flat thoughts sound subtle.
Instead he made a psychic bid of four no-trump, with two subtle thoughts in mind.
His many songs to a woman named Lilla are a happy blend of playful grace and subtle thoughts.
Without the emanations of this divine grace and loving-kindness, all the eloquent hymns and praises, the subtle thoughts of humanity in description of the deity, would be so much anthropomorphic nonsense (Masnavi 2: 1800-1804).
Guadalupe Ruiz— Bogotá D. C. is a subtle, thought-provoking examination of urban life and includes over a hundred stunning images arranged by neighborhood.
