What does the idiom nothing will come of nothing mean?

the quote means exactly, nothing comes from nothing. wich means that everything comes from something. everything is a reaction to something. to react you have to have something to react to. like: industrialism didn´t suddently apear, i came as a reaction to the invention of the steammachine. Again the steammachine was a reaction to previous observations and science. and so on. so everything that happens comes from a previous past. another quote that says the same: to understand the future you have to understand the past.