Full Idea
From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable.
Gist of Idea
Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease
Source
Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4
Book Reference
'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.52
A Reaction
The first statement of a conservation law. Modern physics is wonderful, but hasn't offered a flicker of an answer to this puzzle. Quantum fluctuations are a mode of Being.