Here is Ecclesiastes 1:9: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." This passage is basically saying there is nothing new on earth, everything is the same. But what it means, in context, is that everything on earth ("under the sun") is meaningless and is referring to the fact that what is important is God. It suggests that satisfaction in life doesn't come through material possessions or earthly accomplishments. You should note that Ecclesiastes is written by King Solomon, he is trying to teach what he has learned from life.

I found a few good sites that explain Ecclesiastes in a greater detail, I'll list them in the sources. But here is a bit more info.

Christnotes.org's commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 says:
"Men's hearts and their corruptions are the same now as in former times; their desires, and pursuits, and complaints, still the same. This should take us from expecting happiness in the creature, and quicken us to seek eternal blessings. How many things and persons in Solomon's day were thought very great, yet there is no remembrance of them now!"

SearchGod'sWord's commentary on 1:9 says
"Rather, "no new thing at all"; as in Numbers 11:6. This is not meant in a general sense; but there is no new source of happiness (the subject in question) which can be devised; the same round of petty pleasures, cares, business, study, wars, &c., being repeated over and over again [HOLDEN]."

And http://uk.geocities.com/jonpartin/ecclesiastes.html says:
"Man too is caught up with this continual process. All things are simply continually boring and frustrating, not worth talking about, not satisfying the watching eye, nor the hearing ear, for it is nothing new. What has happened will happen again and again. What is done by man will be done again and again. There is nothing new anywhere, wherever we look under the sun. Man’s knowledge of, and from, life gets him nowhere."

According to One28:
"The aim of Ecclesiastes is to get us ready for eternity. God has put eternity into every man’s heart (3:11) even though we can’t figure it out on our own. For all of Solomon’s observations and advice about life under the sun, he clearly is trying to prepare us for somewhere else; for eternity." And "However much we may try to avoid it, however much we try to distract ourselves with various pursuits and pleasures, however proud we are of our own accomplishments, we cannot escape the One with whom we have to do."

And GodRules.net says:
"Verse 9. The thing that hath been - Every thing in the whole economy of nature has its revolutions; summer and winter, heat and cold, rain and drought, seedtime and autumn, with the whole system of corruption and generation, alternately succeed each other, so that whatever has been shall be again. There is really, physically, and philosophically, nothing absolutely new under the sun, in the course of sublunary things. The same is the case in all the revolutions of the heavens."
Source(s):
http://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?com=mhc&b=21&c=1
http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/jfb/view.cgi?book=ec&chapter=001
http://www.one28ministries.org/2007/09/30/yearning-for-eternity/
http://www.bibletrack.org/cgi-bin/bible.pl?incr=0&mo=8&dy=15
http://www.godrules.net/library/clarke/clarkeecc1.htm
http://uk.geocities.com/jonpartin/ecclesiastes.html

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